Blood of Heroes
by exorcisingemily
Summary: Heaven has turned its back on the Earth. Crowley and Lucifer's forces are battling openly. Hunters are being picked off in droves, and the Winchesters, Castiel and Bobby are left trying to determine how to stop the end of the world when destiny and fate play no part in it. Season Finale of the Before the Fall Verse.
1. Chapter 1

_We've been run down every hill  
Chased up all the dead end streets  
But if you try to cut us out  
You'll get a kick in the teeth  
Ladies and gents, we're still alive  
By the skin of our teeth, now it's killing time  
Angel in our pocket, devil by our side  
We ain't going nowhere 'cause heroes never die_

"Blood of Heroes" by Megadeth

It was a cold, clear Thursday morning when angel radio went deathly silent.

By Thursday evening, Castiel was steadily attempting to drink a bar dry.

By Friday morning (technically), the fallen angel started his first bar brawl.

All told, it was not the best of days.

…

Dean has no idea what woke him. Blinking up at the dusty, distant ceiling, he tries to pin down the faint sense of unease that dragged him from a blessedly dreamless warded sleep. He hadn't reached for his gun, and nobody had ended up punched in his waking moments, so he figures it probably isn't imminent danger. Unfortunately, his apparent Spidey-Sense didn't come with an instruction manual, so he was going to have to figure it out the old-fashioned way.

Stretching carefully, testing the limits of his range of motion and holding it until the sharp pain in his shoulder eases, Dean finally rolls to sitting up and immediately folds himself around the angel sitting stiffly at the foot of the sleeping bag, arms around his waist and chest pressed to his lover's bare back, resting his chin on Cas's shoulder. "Mornin'."

Dean doesn't know what he was expecting. He shouldn't have ignored the intuition. He was learning better than to tune it out, now, but it was the end of the world and some sense of foreboding was pretty much expected. What he didn't foresee was Cas crumpling in on himself, head resting against his knees, breath ragged and harsh as if he'd been holding it until Dean woke. "Whoa, man. . ." Tightening his arms around Castiel, he flattens his hands against his chest, pulling him in tighter and hugging Cas to him. "Shh. I've got you, Cas. What. . .?"

"They're gone, Dean."

His words are a rough and broken whisper, and he twists in Dean's arms, burying his face against Dean's neck as if looking for some way to anchor himself, to ground himself to the earth. Across the room, Sam stirs to wakefulness, pulled by the sound of his brother's concern, hand already closing around a gun as he sits up from his own sleeping bag. The Winchesters exchange a look over the top of Castiel's head as Dean shifts his grip, rubbing soothing circles against Cas's skin, green eyes wide and concerned.

"You gotta give me more than that, Cas. What the hell's going on?"

The noise wrung from Cas at the question is somewhere between a sob and a bitter laugh, and it startles all three of them. Cas freezes in his arms, muscles locked to stillness, and Dean can feel the warm puff of air moving across his shoulder as with a few deliberate metronome breaths Cas pulls himself together, rejecting any notion of himself as weak or vulnerable, and he draws back at last, turning his head away. His voice when he speaks is the familiar, stoic rasp of his past life, and Dean knows immediately that his composure is a complete lie. Cas has never been good at lying. "Heaven, Dean. Michael has made good on his promise to you, that they would cease interfering. Heaven has closed its doors, withdrawn its angels, and left us here." Eyes fixed on a point in the distance, chin high, he can't seem to help the words that escape him in a coarse, absent murmur. "I'm alone."

Dean has never really needed a _reason_ to hate Michael. But the day the archangel closed off Heaven and took with him the last vestiges of angelic connection Castiel had in his humanity, Dean despised him. "Cas, look at me."

There's a moment where Castiel resists the command, and Dean rests a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently and repeating the request. Castiel's sudden regard hits him like a punch to the gut: his first clear look at the man, and he's seeing a ghost. A memory. He'd thought it was the drugs that changed Castiel, turned him into the broken shell he'd met in 2014. God, he'd been such an idiot. He _knew_ better. That future Cas had told him. That future Dean had told him.

_The angels aren't listening! They just—left—gave up!_

_I think it had something to do with the other angels leaving. When they bailed, my mojo just kind of. . . drained away._

Heaven had closed shop, abandoned Castiel as the last angel on earth, ripped his only connection to his family from him, and he _had_ been alone. The Dean of that future hadn't _cared_ how much his friend was hurting, too caught up in his own pain and anger, too ready to throw him away for a chance at revenge.

Every line in Cas's face has deepened in sorrow, the shadows beneath his eyes so stark they seem like a bruise. There's no light to his bright blue eyes, making them seem dull and gray and grief-stricken. His hair is flat, matted to his skull by his own palms as he held his head in his hands and probably desperately sought that angel-radio connection for hours until Dean woke. He's human, he's broken, and he's desperately lost.

Just a joint, a fake smile, and a meaningless hookup away from the Cas that Dean met, now.

"You're_ not_ alone, Cas." Reaching up, he brings his palms to Cas's cheeks, cradling his angel's face in his hands, touching his forehead against Castiel's, noses resting against each other's and eyes closed. "C'mon, man. You know that. _You're_ _not alone_."

Dean can hear Sam join them, sitting on the floor beside their sleeping bag, and his brother hesitates before resting a broad hand on Cas's shoulder. They both carry traces of Castiel's torn, battered grace, the spark he'd infused into Sam when pulling his body from hell. The piece he'd left behind in Dean, as he reshaped his body, healed his soul, and branded him. Every trickle he'd given them, when healing them. What Cas had poured into Dean to bring him back again at Storm Lake. They know he can feel it even after ripping his power and Grace out in his fall. This is the most comfort they can offer him, now.

After a moment, Cas nods once and pushes himself up to his feet as Dean's hands fall away, leaving both boys and their comforting words behind.

"We need to assess the situation. With the threat of Heaven's interference gone, both sides of the war, Crowley _and_ Lucifer, are freer to act overtly." It would be harder to take the Castiel-Angel-Of-The-Lord voice and posture seriously in pajama pants and halfway into buttoning up one of his dress shirts to cover the scars and tattoo on his chest, if it weren't for the deadly seriousness he infused in every syllable.

"Laptop battery needs to charge." Sam remarks carefully, glancing at Dean, and the brothers share a moment of understanding. "If things have gotten bad we need to stick close to one of the safehouses. We shouldn't travel too far, and we already built the contacts here as FBI if we need anything from the police databases."

Which would explain why Cas was pulling out the carefully folded suit from the bottom of his bag, turned away from them, mechanically going through the motions of getting ready.

"Breakfast first." Dean declares, pushing himself to his feet and moving to join Cas at their bags, hands coming up to catch Cas's. The angel freezes, prepared to refuse comfort again in favor of being able to function, before Dean undoes the work he had been doing on his tie and fixes it, his words gentle. "You were doing it backwards again." Cas accepts the excuse to touch him without comment, watching Dean's hands rather than meeting his eyes, and he shrugs his blazer on immediately after, stepping back to pull on his slacks and grab his shoes.

Cas needs to be the soldier right now. He retreats into that the way Dean does into sarcasm and drinks. The way Sam buries himself in research. They all need the comfort of routine right now.

Because this is the day the world goes to Hell.


	2. Chapter 2

It begins with the radio, the news from across the world bespeaking chaos and carnage. People were flooding to Mecca, to the Vatican, and reports were confused. Religious and political figures worldwide were acting out of character. Crowley's work, they were sure, the crossroads demon playing the political card masterfully, herding humanity in order to gain strategic advantages; seeking out religious artifacts once secured by Heaven and securing as meatsuits those who would know where to find them or would have clearance to access them.

They enter the diner they had taken lunch at the day before while dealing with the town's missing person problem (witches, this time, tied up in Crowley's schemes to crack more of his own demons out of Hell) and every eye in the place is fixed on the TV. One of the sheriff's deputies they'd worked with raises a mug of coffee in greeting, gesturing them over, and jerks his chin at the screen as he lowers his voice.

"You guys know anything about this that I don't? I got cousins up in Ogden . . ."

The Latter Day Saints had organized a network of Mormon hunters, one of the most expansive groups in the United States they'd learned in recent travels. It seems as if their angelic protection had gone when Heaven closed its doors.

In Chicago, in Detroit, there had been battles: Hell fought Hell, and people fled as best they could. Plague takes Salt Lake City, storms wipe out the power and level buildings, but even the newscasters seem skeptical, calling it potential terrorist activity. It's much closer to the truth: cutting the head off of any remaining LDS hunters, and leaving them scattered and without their hard-won information.

"Hey, mister, you okay?" The deputy asks, drawing the boys' attention away from the screen and back to their companion. "Do you know someone there?"

Staring at the screen, hands gripping the back of one of the chairs at the deputy's table in a white-knuckled grasp, Castiel stares at the destruction, jaw bunched, eyes tight, and he pushes away from the table as soon as he's addressed, his words clipped and forced out from between clenched teeth. "My sister."

This was Asmodeus's doing, as clear as if she'd personally messaged them. Nothing is left to protect them. All of Castiel's memories are fair game. She knows just how to crippled humanity's supernatural defenses. . . all because an angel had tried to play at being human, at being a hunter, and had gotten close.

Cas stalks out, straight-arming the glass door of the diner open and setting the bell above swinging violently as he does, but Dean can see him make his way back to the Impala parked out front, and shoots a quick glance at his brother, who nods, already turning to the deputy as Dean goes to speak to the angel.

". . . going to need to borrow some of your resources. We need to get in contact with the home office, and we'll need some space and privacy. . ."

"Yeah, of course sir. I'm sure the sheriff will be glad to do whatever we can to help. . ." The deputy is stammering his words over each other, nervous and shaken further by Castiel, already reaching for the radio on his shoulder.

The afternoon is spent organizing the hunters they know, getting them safe, checking one everyone, gathering resources, coordinating with Bobby, preparing to defend whatever they can. Bobby's pulling in all his books, all his scattered artifacts, everything he's squirreled away since long before his placed burned down. Cas speaks only in clipped declaratives, and the fact that they're in a sheriff's office keeps him safe from any further attempts to comfort him as news rolls in.

And so, at five o'clock at night, they watch together as grainy footage from a camera outside of Vatican City shows a light consume the entire midnight sky, and leave nothing of Rome in its wake.

Lucifer walked amongst Crowley's forces, strolled through the heart of Catholic faith without a vessel, and demonstrated his power.

_Nothing _survived.

Castiel excuses himself from the room quietly as Bobby and Dean talk over each other on the phone, working out plans to meet, arranging some manner of response. Sam, unnaturally pale, ducks his long frame until it's nearly folded in half, nose practically touching his laptop screen. It takes thirty minutes before either of them realizes Cas isn't coming back in. Not unusual in itself, but Dean's sense of unease grows.

Ten minutes later they have no idea where he's gone. He's not in at the station and not at the car. GPS won't get them far: Castiel's phone sits abandoned on the front seat of the Impala.

Banging his fist against the steering wheel, Dean invents new expletives in short order, and the manhunt begins. He hopes to God Cas just wandered off and wasn't snatched.

That way he can kill the idiot himself.

…

This is the third bar Castiel has been to tonight. When he attempted to explain angels and demons to the last bartender, and how they needed to protect themselves, they had seen him out. When he vehemently rebuffed a woman's advances by pointing out that not only was he married and his _husband_ would be displeased if he was disloyal, he found her generally repulsive down to her pitiful, blighted soul, he had been cautioned to leave the first bar, over the screeching of the woman.

There are no televisions in this bar, and few people looking his way despite the crowds of people attempting to drink themselves into a stupor and ignore the chaos. The lack of news is a blessing, and so is the escapist attitude of the patrons.

He can see at least two people that he instinctively knows, if he approached, he could likely purchase narcotics from. He watches them, confirms it as people trickle into the bar around them and then drift back out without lingering for more than a single drink. Business is booming tonight, as people seek chemical relief from fear and escape from reality. He can relate. He wonders what they have to offer. He wonders if it would matter to him. He has never been particular about his drugs before.

A larger man leans into the reedy, sallow-faced man whom he had pegged as a dealer, and he leaves shortly after. One left. His options are dwindling. Perhaps it'll help his control. Castiel presses his hands against the battered bar top before him, rubbing them against the grain as if it'll ease a purely psychological itch, and then signals for more shots, chasing them after each other in rapid procession, unmindful of the fact that he can't steady them when he puts them back down on the bar. He still catches one before it rolls off.

"Decent reflexes for a drunk." The drug dealer has left his table and joined Castiel at the bar, brown eyes searching him cautiously. "You're watching my table, the last hour. You a cop?"

Cas huffs quietly, and signals the bartender for another drink, putting aside the shots and ignoring the barkeep's skeptical look, his words short and tone abrupt. "No."

He doesn't look it, either. Not that he ever looks it, apparently, despite the badge tucked into his pocket. Tie undone when he felt strangled by it a bar back, shirt half untucked by being manhandled out the door, his FBI suit was rumpled and smelled like smoke and whiskey. For a moment, his liquor soaked brain feels regret that they'll have to take it to a drycleaner now before he can use it as a costume again. And then he remembers that the world is ending, and tries to drown the realization.

"Then you're working up the nerve." The dealer is little more than a child, just old enough to drink, and he offers an even-toothed grin that makes him look younger, white against his dark olive complexion. Cas has seen he's not alone in the bar, though. The larger man who had chased away the other dealer, and one more sitting alone at a table nearby, they are organized around him. "Ain't a cop, what are you then? What's your poison."

"I am an angel." Castiel responds sorrowfully, and stares down at his drink, watching his breath ripple the surface. "Or I was. I don't know what I am any more."

"Angel dust, huh? Old school. I got some wet, same shit different method. You lookin' for something new?" Cas raises his head, brow furrowed, and he will never know what his response was going to be.

Sam Winchester can _loom_. Cas blinks to focus on the broad chest behind the dealer, and follows the tie up to the face above it, frowning as Sam claps a hand onto the dealer's shoulder. He shouldn't have done that. Cas can see the two thugs moving to their feet. He is really not sober enough for this.

"Sam, don't. . ."

"Why don't you go back to your table and leave my brother alone." Sam is quite large. Cas tends to miss that, because physical form has meant so very little to him for so long (_Chrysler building_, his subconscious taunts him) but the younger Winchester towers over them all, particularly with him sitting down. Glancing behind Sam, Cas uses the edge of the bar to brace himself as he stands up, his limbs rebelling against his control.

Sam called Cas his _brother_. The thought soaks into his mind after a delay, and rather than warming him, Cas frowns. He is Dean's husband, whether legally or officially or not. Which makes him Sam's brother, by virtue of human intricacies. And makes _his_ family _Dean's _family.

So by that logic, even in saving Sam, it had _still_ been Dean's brother who had casually murdered nearly four million in Rome, destroyed the Holy See, and illustrated the point that Lucifer _needed_ a vessel to manage any form of delicacy. . . he needed _Sam_. Does his tie to Dean bring Sam into his family as well? Did he thoughtlessly make Sam and Lucifer brothers?

The liquor churns in his gut, and Cas exerts his considerable willpower just to keep from being ill as the world seems to tilt, and Cas has to blink and refocus on the conversation around him. He hadn't been distracted long. One of the two thugs is coming up behind Sam, though, as he addresses the dealer.

Cas acts before his thoughts have time to catch up. He has _one_ brother worth saving now, with Heaven closed. All of the others have either abandoned the Earth to its fate, or are involved in its destruction.

The thug puts a meaty hand on Sam's arm.

Castiel's fist collides with the underside of the man's jaw.

The drug dealer throws an elbow at Sam.

Chaos erupts around them, and sound seems to flood back into Cas's ears, just in time to be disorienting. He feels arms around him from behind, and remembers the second thug belatedly, bracing his feet against the bar and slamming his head back into the face behind him instinctively. With both of his feet off of the ground and the grip around him dropping suddenly, Cas hits the ground hard, blinking dazedly up at Dean, who is holding a bloody nose and glowering down at him.

Oh. There he is. That explained where the other thug went.

"Sonuva. . . get your ass off the frikkin' floor Cas and _go _you . . ." Whatever insult Dean was about to deal is interrupted as the fight flows over them again. There are people involved that had nothing to do with the interrupted drug deal, now: apparently bringing violence into a seedy bar when everyone already is tense is poor strategy.

"_FBI. Everybody down on the ground!" _Sam bellows out over the chaos, holding his badge in the air, gun at his side, and even Cas has to fight the urge to obey the voice. Or perhaps he's fighting the pull of gravity and the press of the alcohol in his system. This time, when Dean fixes a vice grip on his arm and hauls him, he goes willingly, listening as Dean calls the police to the scene, the obvious intention that the Winchesters would clear out before they got there.

A final shove sends Cas banging into the side of the Impala, and he doesn't have the time to slide down it to the gravel before Dean closes the space between them. They've been in this position before, one of them pressed against the car, but Dean doesn't kiss him this time as he brings his face in close, green eyes narrowed in fury, blood streaming from his nose and his lip split by Cas's head-butt.

"If you run off like that again I will kick your fucking ass, do you understand me? I thought they'd gotten you, looked everywhere and find out you've been going to frikkin' bars introducing yourself as an angel. You _trying_ to get snatched by demons? And what the fuck _was _that in there?"

"_That_ was a drug deal." Sam's angered voice cuts through the fleeting, juvenile hope that Dean wouldn't find out. He didn't know what he would have done. He'd never had the opportunity to turn it down, or to make the purchase. Dean tears his way from his brother to look at Cas again, and Castiel can't face the utter _disappointment _in Dean's eyes.

"Dean, I. . ."

"Just get in the goddamn car, Cas." Dean's voice is weary, and he pushes away from Cas, leaving the fallen angel feeling cold and unsteady. Sam's shoulder hits Cas's as he gets into the passenger's side door, and Castiel staggers. Left alone outside of the car, he turns, resting his forehead against the metal walls of their home, and lets shame wash over him.

The sirens are shrill and piercing. Cas can see lights washing over the bar, and notes people bolting from it. They need to follow suit.

The door isn't even closed behind him entirely before Dean is pealing out of the parking lot.


	3. Chapter 3

The drive is awkward and quiet. Short of a demand that Cas neither throw up in his car, nor nod off while they were outside of a warded space and vulnerable to Asmodeus and Lucifer popping in on his dreams, there's no conversation between the three of them as they take off towards the condemned home they had claimed the night before, just outside of the city. Dean's hands are firmly on the wheel, the radio plays neither news nor music, and Dean has adjusted the mirror to look out the rear window as it was designed to, rather than look at Castiel in the back.

Dean is the first out of the car once he puts it in park, stalking back to the building to clear it, gun held low and body tensed for violence. Sam lingers by the car long enough to thrust Castiel's phone back into his hands, hazel eyes narrowed. "Keep that on you from now on. And you owe him an apology as soon as you're sober."

"Sam, I'm. . ."

Sam holds up a hand, shaking his head slightly. "Save it. Okay? Just. . . don't. You think you're the only one this is affecting? I went to_ hell_, to stop this from happening last time. You, Bobby, you both _died. _Dean watched as it took_ everything _from him. You don't get to fall apart on us now, Cas. Get yourself together and get inside." Leaned against the car, Sam watches Cas flatly, intent on not moving until Cas does, not letting the angel out of his sight.

One night, and he has found himself once again under guard. One slip, and he has broken the fragile happiness they had constructed.

They'd all known it was doomed to fall apart eventually.

His eyes don't want to adjust to the darkness in the house, and he stumbles several times, guided only by the silvery light of the moon shining into windows painted with sigils.

Cas finds Dean in the kitchen, sitting on the kitchen counter staring off through spider-webbed and painted glass windows to the cracked and empty pool in the back yard, brow furrowed and shoulders slumped. Cas's legs aren't steady, and his head is aching, and he shouldn't be hung over while already drunk: the headaches are his own, not the work of the alcohol. He slides down the cabinet to sit on the dirty floor at Dean's feet, wrapping his arms around his knees, leaning his head against Dean's shin as he follows Dean's gaze.

"I'm sorry, Dean."

"Did you take anything?" Dean's voice, despite his posture, is level, gruff, straightforward. Cas shakes his head, and responds aloud after a moment. "No."

"Did you buy anything?"

"No." Cas knows regardless of what he says, later Dean will likely check the pockets of his blazer, his coat, just to reassure himself. Dean has learned distrust of even family and loved ones the hard way. Cas contributed to those lessons as much as anyone.

"Would you have?"

Closing his eyes, Cas ducks his chin down to his chest and answers clearly. "I don't know."

"Gotta respect a terse but honest drunk." Dean mutters ruefully, rubbing his hand over his eyes before pushing himself off of the counter, sliding down to join Cas on the floor, shoulder to shoulder. Cas slumps against him immediately, supported against his side, too inebriated now to care that he's showing weakness. "You promised me you were done with all that shit, Cas."

"I was. Since Christmas." It's important that Dean understands he meant it. He'd given him that promise and _meant_ it, or else the withdrawal, the headaches, the advice he'd given Sam while he suffered through his own, were meaningless. Raising his head, he looks at Dean earnestly, pleading with him to believe.

Turning his head, Dean takes in Cas's face, his wide eyes glazed and reflective in the moonlight, swaying slightly as he sits in place, and snorts quietly. "You're so frikkin' wasted, Cas." Even when he was an angel, the day he'd downed an entire liquor store, being drunk hadn't made Cas any more pleasant to be around. "You _are_ done with it. Not were. You get me, Cas? We're not going through all of that again. And none of this. . . running off shit. I thought you were _dead_."

Cas is silent, and after a moment Dean sighs. Well, this is familiar. "You're just staring at my lips, dude. Again."

"I hurt you." Cas raises a hand up between them, feathering his fingertips over Dean's split lip and looking like someone had run over his puppy, shot his grandma, and told him Santa wasn't real all at once. . . and great. They've reached the handsy stage of Castiel's drunkenness.

"Yeah. That happens sometimes." Catching Cas's hands as he traces his fingers down the line of Dean's nose looking for a break (that shit tickles), Dean rolls his eyes and pushes himself up before pulling Cas to his feet, bracing the fallen angel upright by ducking under his arm. "C'mon. We'll have this conversation again when you'll remember it."

Sam looks up when they come back into the room they've set up in, lit by the computer screen before him, eyes tracking their movement across the room and lips pressed into a thin line. More bad news, then.

"Alright, Cas. Sleep it off. Because this? This isn't done. I'm still pissed at you." Dropping the angel onto their sleeping bag, he goes to stand again, to join Sammy, and finds a hand clamped around his wrist, Cas's eyes wide and panicked as he looks up at him from their nest on the floor.

". . . don't leave me alone." It's a plea, nearly a childlike terror, and Dean's awkwardly poised between crouching and standing, making his knee ache, so he settles back down onto the floor, unsurprised when Cas immediately moves to lay his head in Dean's lap, still holding his arm.

"I'm not going anywhere, Cas. I meant it. You're not alone. Just stop trying to run off on us, you dumbass." Running his fingers through Cas's sweat-damp hair, he offers Sam a helpless shrug, before leaning over the angel, his voice lowered for the two of them. "I've got you, Cas. Just go to sleep."

Castiel's voice is remarkably clear, this time, loud enough to carry, sandpapered and heartbroken. "It was a Thursday, Dean. . . they did it on a Thursday."

Castiel had fought for the angels to have free will. Had tried so hard to teach it to them. He'd tried to have both worlds, and destroyed himself doing it. And they gave up. They all gave up.

Dean had _asked_ for this, so many times. For the angels to screw off, and leave humanity alone. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, resigned to checking the news one-handed while acting as an angel pillow, he quietly has to wonder if getting what he'd asked for wouldn't be the thing that sunk them after all.

…

The first thing that Castiel is aware of is warm skin beneath his cheek, and instinctively he nuzzles into it, stubbled cheek dragging across the flesh beneath him. Then the movement reminds him of the hornets that seem to have taken residence in his skull, a kicked nest that stings at his eyes, shoots pain through his cerebellum, and buzzes through his entire body unpleasantly, making him shudder and wrap himself more tightly around the warm body beneath him, squeezing his eyes shut and groaning quietly.

"You keep doing that, Cas, I'm going to expect favors from you that you're really not in any shape to be giving right now." Dean's whisper is hoarse, and he palms the back of Cas's neck, gently pressing away the tension in his muscles, burying his nose into Cas's hair. He withdraws his face almost immediately after and grimaces in distaste. "You frikkin' _bathe_ in booze then roll in an ashtray, Cas? Geeze."

"You talk too much." Cas grumbles, too-loud, and he cuts his words short quickly as his headache worsens. This is more than a hangover. He's just not sure what it is yet. (There's hydrocodone in the trunk of the Impala somewhere Dean stashed it for when they were injured. If he dug he could find it. But he will not.)

"You turn into an octopus in your sleep when you're drunk. Don't bitch." Cas can feel Dean's words rumble through the chest beneath his cheek, and he burrows into him further, as if he's trying to climb into Dean and hide there. There is some truth to the octopus statement, perhaps. He's wound all of his limbs around Dean, trapped the hunter against him, and even now that he's regained consciousness and noticed their positions he's reluctant to release him. Sweat has dampened the skin beneath his cheek, his hands, and their skin sticks to each other's, but moving would be inviting more pain and losing warmth. "You actually awake this time?"

There had been other times? During the night, Dean had apparently managed to strip him out of the FBI suit, and tuck him into the nest they'd made out of sleeping bags. He's grateful for it, not only for the fact that it brings him closer to Dean, but that they won't risk him damaging it more. Money is nonexistent, now, down to hoping each stolen credit card goes through, and Castiel doesn't want them having to replace the tailored suit Dean had bought him because he started bar fights and didn't take care of it.

Cas finally grunts in answer to the question of his consciousness, rolling his shoulders in a displeased and noncommittal shrug, and Dean slides his fingers from the back of Cas's neck to card through his hair, other hand moving to tug Cas's hand away from the small of Dean's back, twining their fingers together and freeing Dean's upper body from captivity. "We need to talk."

". . . hate that phrase." Cas mutters peevishly, but he cracks open one bloodshot eye and shifts positions, squinting up at Dean's face. It's clear Dean has been awake for some time, stroking a hand comfortingly up and down Cas's back and attempting to engage him every time he muttered or cried out in his sleep, deep in thought otherwise. It was the thoughtful look that Castiel was dreading.

Because as little as he might want to admit it, he fully remembers the night before. Castiel remembers everything. It was a macabre little joke, in its way, how he could never seem to forget anything, from his millennia as a soldier of God, to every failure since, and apparently drinking didn't diminish that dubious gift. He knows that he should be begging forgiveness, or arguing his case, or preparing a defense, because he remembers every moment. . . and yet he's resigned to accepting whatever Dean decides.

"You running off on your own and ditching us because you think you've been left alone is probably the _stupidest_ plan you've ever. . . "

"Second." Castiel corrects, closing his eye once more and shifting to pillow his head on Dean's chest again.

". . . _second _stupidest plan you've ever had." Dean incorporates the correction smoothly. "But it's still up there. You don't run out on the family you've made 'cause the family you were born with are a bunch of douchebags, Cas." Castiel growls low in his throat, protesting but not arguing, and Dean shakes his shoulder, earning a pained noise and Cas's face buried against his skin again. "No, _listen_ to me, you _knew_ they were dicks, Cas. . ."

"They were my family, Dean. They have been my family for the whole of creation. And I destroyed them. I murdered all of the ones closest to me, and I tore apart the structure of Heaven's army, devastated any defense it could have given. I tried, I tried to _show_ them, to teach them that they could be free, but they. . ." There's more than sweat dampening his cheek now, and Castiel finally untangles his legs from Dean's, removes his arm around him, and moves to sit up and turn away. Dean's arms clamp around Cas, refusing to let him pull away, forcing him to have this conversation without hiding. ". . . I can't, Dean. I can't do this."

"Yeah, you can."

The calm affirmation annoys Cas, stings him into anger and denial. "I'm an _angel_, Dean. It is who I am, it is _what_ I am. And it's _gone_. My wings, my family, my garrison, and now it's just. . . my head, it's so _empty_. . ."

"I'm not touching that one with a ten foot pole." Dean mutters, and Cas blinks, forcing his watery eyes to focus on the distant wall of the room lit faintly by weak sunlight, thrown by the offhand comment.

"I don't know what that _means_."

". . . Forget it. Cas, you _can_ do this. And you've_ got _a family." Dean is gentle, deliberate as he takes Cas's hand in his and brings it to his lips, pressing a kiss to the ring on Castiel's finger, and when he speaks again his breath skates along Cas's knuckles, the back of his hand and to his wrist, making Cas shiver. Dean's restraining hand otherwise occupied, Cas is able to lift his head again, wide blue eyes focused unblinkingly on Dean's face, red-rimmed and bloodshot and desperate. "You got me. Okay? I'm not going anywhere. Just don't. . . don't be the one doing the leaving, because I can't take that shit any more. You promised you weren't going anywhere and I'm holding you to it. That means none of the drugs too, because you can't check out mentally either. We gotta deal with this, Cas, we can't run from it."

Dean would never admit how long he'd laid there figuring out how to say this. There was more, carefully chosen words that were firm but caring, but Castiel crashing into him, lips bruising his, his hand clenching around Dean's as if Dean's hand was literally the life-rope keeping him from falling, chased them away. Not that Dean minded. He knew Cas had heard.

Rolling Cas beneath him, he returns Cas's desperate kiss, and neither of them hears the distant rumble of the Impala rolling to a stop again outside, or registers the other presence reentering the house, until Sam clears his throat pointedly and Dean's hand scrabbles across the floor beside them towards his gun, before noting that it's his brother, a hand covering his eyes, standing in the doorway with his floppy hair and his rumpled jacket like a puppy dog, with his lips twisted into a knowing smirk beneath his hand. "Okay, can you two tell me when you've stopped trying to eat each other's faces?"

"Prude." Dean sighs, and presses another quick kiss to Castiel, who looks dazed beneath him. He runs a thumb below Cas's eyes gently, too, before Sam can see them, and then starts the process of untangling them from the bedding and each other. "You stole my car again, and you've been gone for a while."

"Exhibitionist. And I knew you wouldn't miss it. You were busy doing the creepy staring thing he always does when _you're_ sleeping." Separating his fingers, Sam peeks, sighs, and then hides his eyes behind his hand again. "Pants, Dean."

"Yeah, yeah, shut it. Tell me you brought food." Considering how things went down at the diner when they went for breakfast, and his panic the rest of the day, he hadn't eaten at all the day before. Tugging jeans up over his legs and throwing another pair at Cas, he leers when Cas, shoulders and feet braced against the floor, drags the denim up over himself in a move that looked like it was straight out of a yoga book. Porny yoga. When Cas rolls his eyes and sighs, he knows they'll be alright.

"I did you one better." Sam sounds smug. "We need someplace to work. The station isn't smart. Couple towns over, I got us a motel room with Wifi and a TV to work out of. Get a shower, set up for a while. . ."

"A _bed_." God, he missed beds.

"We can't sleep there, Dean, it's not safe." Satisfied now that both other men are dressed, Sam drops his hand just in time to catch another leer from Dean. ". . . You weren't thinking about sleeping. I am _not_ putting the apocalypse on hold for you two to have marathon make-up sex, Dean."


	4. Chapter 4

"That is just disgusting." Laptop open in front of him, television playing beside him, Sam Winchester is staring, not at scenes of carnage, but at the vision of Dean flopped on his back sideways across a motel bed, cramming his third bacon cheeseburger into his mouth as if he can fit the entire burger into his maw, and without regard to the crumbs he's getting onto the bedspread. Crumbs that fly when he turns his head, trying to speak around the food.

"What?" It comes out as a muffled interrogative slur, but Sam knows Dean is doing it on purpose. There's ketchup at the corner of his mouth, and before he's even had time to chew up what he's already got, he's shoveling more in for the benefit of Castiel as he exits the motel room's bathroom, clean shaved and bathed, hair still wet and t-shirt clinging as he pulls it down.

"Cas, your _boyfriend _is being disgusting." Dean begins chewing, rolling his jaw without closing his lips, _just_ to bother his brother further. Bitch knew he hated that term. Castiel, for his part, looks as if he's considering the benefits of putting the aviator glasses he'd been sporting since they dragged his hungover angelic ass into the car. Eventually he hooks them by one leg into the front of his t-shirt, reserving the option for later. He doesn't bother glancing at Dean. "Husband. And no, he's not."

"_Fiancé." _Sam corrects right back, apparently completely capable of bitching at both of them at once._ "_He's getting crumbs all over the bed. . ."

"Which we have no intention of sleeping in." Castiel interrupts, still sounding irritable.

". . . And he's crammed like two burgers into his mouth at once."

"The White-Throated Monitor is able to dislocate its thyroid bone to. . ."

"Oh, God, not more of the Animal Planet crap. . ." Dean's managed to swallow enough to make his complaint understandable, and he shifts to lay oriented correctly on the bed, cramming a pillow beneath his head. When Cas shoots Dean an annoyed glance at the interruption and the casual blasphemy, he swipes his tongue across his lips to chase away the ketchup there, and smirks smugly when Cas's eyes track the movement and the bitchy response dies before he can voice it. "I was _hungry_. And I frikkin' _miss _beds. I'm getting too old for the sleeping on concrete crap."

At that, Castiel can't help letting out a contradictory snort, though he doesn't again remind Dean of their respective ages. Mostly because Dean has reached to the nightstand and grabbed the burger and cup of mocha coffee he'd left there, holding it out to Castiel as if baiting a stray cat, waggling the offerings enticingly.

"That's like the lamest seduction technique of all time." Sam grouses as he turns back to the screens.

"Works though."

Cas clambers onto the bed beside Dean, sitting with his back to the headboard and the coffee cradled in his hands, the burger forgotten on his knee for the moment, his legs stretched out before him, alongside the long line of his lounging hunter. It's comfortable, and comforting to both of them, and to Sam as well, who watched every problem in their relationship as if afraid they'd break at any moment.

They all know it's time to put the family business aside, their personal problems, and so Castiel hadn't made an issue over Sam being left to babysit him and make sure he didn't leave the room while Dean went on a food run, and Dean hadn't mentioned the miserable hangover that Castiel was stoically attempting not to take out on the rest of them. The eyes of all three men find their way to the television before them.

There are people wailing on the devastated grounds of the Vatican. It looks as if a bomb has gone off there, torn the buildings apart and destroyed everyone. The warning of potentially disturbing images flashes across the silenced television screen, before the bodies are shown with their eyes burned out. They'd be speculating on it again, their theories wild and even more improbable than the truth.

"So. Crowley?" Dean is the one that brings the discussion up, and neither man needs to ask what he means. This is well trod conversational ground.

"He is the weaker party." Castiel agrees weakly, and he takes a long pull from the coffee, ignoring the scalded tongue he gets for it in favor of the caffeine and chocolate that would help abate the hangover effects. Dean knows he isn't going to like the next words out of Cas's mouth, when the angel begins with worrying his chapped lower lip in his teeth immediately after.

"There was a '_but'_ there . . ." Sam prompts, and Dean knows he can see it too.

"_But. _If we look at the long-term aspect. . . Hell will still exist. Hell _must_ exist, much as Heaven must be kept open to the Reapers to pierce the veil, even if the gates are closed to the rest of us. . ." Dean wasn't sure he liked the flash of naked jealousy in Cas's eyes at that. ". . . Because the souls of the dead would otherwise be left to roam the earth. All of them. The point remains that someone must rule Hell."

"If you're about to suggest to me that we make a deal with Crowley, I will punch you in the nose."

Letting his breath out slowly, Castiel fixes a level gaze on Dean, and raises his chin. "I headbutted you. That seems fair. It does not, however, negate my point."

"Your _point_ being that you want to make the same goddamned choice that fucked you up last time." Dean growls, shoving himself upright and turning to face Cas on the bed. Carefully setting aside his coffee, as if worried Dean _was_ going to punch him in the face and choosing to preserve the beverage instead, Cas is trying his best not to lash out verbally. He's not certain how long that resolve will last, given his hangover and the topic.

"I made that choice, Dean, because it was the _tactical_ decision. _That_ was not where I went wrong last time."

"Coulda fooled me, Cas. Because to me, it looked like you went skipping off with Crowley first chance you. . ."

"You were _there_, Dean!" Castiel's volume has ratcheted up to match Dean's, and it lances through his skull like a railroad spike. Flinching, Castiel drops his face to his hands, pressing the heels of his palms over his eyes, trying to abate the feeling that they were going to explode behind his eyelids. Repeating himself at a more reasonable volume, he picks back up again. "You were there. You saw the memory Asmodeus dredged up and what happened. I did not go 'skipping off.' I came to you first. I stood there for _hours_. Watching you talk to your neighbors, watching you get Ben to school, watching you rake the lawn and drink your beer and be. . ."

"Be what, Cas?" Castiel can hear danger in those three words, and the lowered voice does nothing to diminish the tension. This is. . . he cannot have this conversation now. Forcing his breath out through his nose, Castiel raises his head again and redirects back to the topic.

"My error was in allowing Crowley to dictate the terms of the agreement, and set the plan. My error was in accepting the power of Hell as a . . . a gateway drug, to the souls of Purgatory. It was always my plan to 'double-cross' him. . ." He keeps his hands still in his lap, rather than providing the air quotes, and it feels stiff and awkward. "We were at war. Him against the _idea_ of Lucifer, against his supporters in Hell, and me against Raphael. We were both the weaker parties, and it benefitted both of us to work together in _some _manner. And it. . ."

"Be _what, _Cas?" Dean Winchester can be like a dog after a bone when he gets his mind set, and no amount of conversational redirection was going to deter him. One of the most shameful moments of Castiel's life, and he's allowed Dean access to it once again, a reason to touch on it. Dean _knows_ it is the memory that broke his resolve, that Asmodeus dragged up again and again until she could crack his concentration, trying to keep Dean out of it.

Dean just doesn't know _why_. It rankles.

"You were _alive_, Dean. I couldn't take that from you. And a war of that scope would have killed you. Just as this will likely kill all three of us." The words might be depressing, but Castiel does not seem defeated in giving them. There's defiance in his gaze, and he opens his mouth to continue, but Dean holds a hand up without breaking their stare, eyes narrowed, nostrils flared angrily.

"Sam? Take a walk."

Sam's been watching the proceedings like the verbal battle was a ping-pong match, head swiveling to look at one brother, then the other, brow furrowed. And yet, neither of them expects it when he firmly responds to Dean's demand.

"No."

Dean and Cas _both_ blink. They both turn towards the youngest Winchester, sitting in the chair at the table across the motel room from them, bent nearly double to rest his elbows on his knees, hands hanging loosely into the space between, jaw set stubbornly.

"No, I'm not going to take a walk. Look, I only get about half of what you're talking about, but I know enough without the specifics. I've had enough of both of you being hypocritical idiots about each other. The two of you having a pissing contest over who gets to take a bullet for the other guy still ends up with one or both of you dead, so no. I'm not going anywhere. Apparently I'm the only one of us whose plan revolves around all three of us living, so I stay. So let's take the emotional baggage off the table for a little while and talk about the Crowley thing, okay?"

". . . I tell you that you're a brat any time recently, Sam?"

"Three days ago, over a bag of chips that made your lips and fingers orange and tasted nothing like cheese. He is not wrong, though."

"_I _don't even remember what I ate the night before. That's almost as creepy as invisible stalking." Dean mutters, and he drags his blunt fingernails through his hair before straightening, unconsciously resuming a more military bearing, and Castiel smiles faintly to himself as he unwraps his burger. "Alright, so Crowley we either find and take out, or find and make a deal with. . ." He shoots a quick glare at Cas, who responds with complete lack of response, chewing his burger. ". . . We all in agreement about Lucifer, at least?"

"We have to kill him this time. It won't ever be over unless we do. Not really." Sam feels guilty for it, as if it's selfish, as if their sole reason to kill the devil was to keep him from forever trying to crawl into Sam's head. Despite his reservations about the probability of it, Cas nods his agreement with the assertion.

"So, assuming you don't have some Heavenly weapon you can conveniently get your hands on for that, Cas…"

Castiel frowns, swiping his tongue over his lips and swallowing, speaking immediately. "If I had, I would have brought it to your attention last time, Dean."

"That was sarcastic and _rhetorical_, Cas." Dean was wearing his long-suffering expression again, the one he usually had when Cas missed something patently human.

". . . Ah."

Dean's lips twitch faintly as Cas ducks his head down, and he shifts on the bed to sit next to Cas comfortably again, bumping shoulders with the angel before resuming. "So, that being clearly and definitively ruled out, thanks Cas. . ."

Cas raises a middle finger at him, which startles a laugh out of Sam across the room, and he _knew_ he had that one right after observing enough of their interactions.

". . . maybe later." Dean leers, waggling his eyebrows, and maybe he_ didn't_ have that particular gestural response correct after all, but he wasn't going to say no to that offer. ". . . So, we're back to ganking an archangel with an army of mooks. How goes the exorcist act, Cas?"

There was something pointed in the way Dean phrased their current situation, but Castiel ignores it, answering the question posed to him instead. "I have no practical way to test it, but I have recorded everything Alistair said and patterned a completion to the ritual based on texts of similar structure. In truth though. . . I am not certain of its effect now." Reaching for his coffee, he pulls it to himself, cradling it close to his face for the warmth and the smell of it, for the comfort the beverage represented. "I know what it _felt_ like. He was ripping my grace from my vessel, tearing me loose. But in that event, I would have been pushed back to Heaven without form. It would have taken some time to recover, and for a lesser rank of angel may have been permanently disabling."

"Lucifer's a whole different ballgame." Sam says, and he braces his chin on his fist, staring at the devastation on the screen that evidenced that fact.

"Yes. And Heaven is. . ." Castiel can't find an end to that sentence, and tips his chin down, trying to steady his words, beginning again. "It wouldn't work the same way. Even before, if it expelled Lucifer to Heaven, the effects would have been devastating. It might hurt, but it would not have the desired effect, and we are more likely to be summarily executed if we tried. Now, even if it did not merely send him back to Hell, which at best is a temporary roadblock. . . he has no vessel. There is nothing to exorcise him _from _unless he takes another temporary vessel, I am not in the right form to fight him as he is." Not that he would have stood any chance in a straight fight, as an _angel_. "The exorcism is forClaire Novak. We are going to rescue her."

He had _promised_.

Dean doesn't argue, this time. "Well, it's a start, I guess. Save the cheerleader, save the world."

Cas stares blankly at him, and Dean rolls his eyes, pushing off of the bed. "Yeah, yeah. I know. She's not a cheerleader and you don't understand the reference. Don't sweat that one." Linking his hands together, Dean gives a full-body stretch that sends his back cracking all the way down, letting him slump comfortably afterwards. He _really _missed crappy motel rooms and their beds and full baths. "Alright, so we just gotta figure _where_ we go from here. . ."

"Kansas." The answer is immediate. Pre-programmed. Inexplicable. And Castiel frowns suddenly, brow furrowed. ". . . I don't know why I'm saying that."

Dean and Sam exchange looks, and Dean rests a hand on Cas's shoulder, drawing his eyes up.

"Cas, where. . .?"

"Kansas." The sharp headache that has followed him since Heaven closed is abating, and the absence of pain is jarring. Blinking, he shakes his head slightly and there's an edge of panic to his wide eyes as he looks up at Dean; he can't handle this, so soon after Asmodeus's violation. It doesn't _feel_ invasive, but he doesn't trust his own mind any more. "Something. . . some_one_. . . wants me to know that. I don't understand."

Dean resettles in front of Cas, legs folded beneath him, holding Cas's hands on his knees, Sam perches beside them on the bed checking Castiel's pupils, offering theories, until Castiel finally shakes them off in annoyance. He can _feel_ it now, though: it is more than a word, a place, it is magnetic north and he can feel himself becoming drawn to it.

Closing his eyes, Cas folds his legs, and shuts them out to try and get to the bottom of what's happening to him.

"But how do you feel _now_, Cas?"

Or he _tries_ to shut them out.

"Hung over." Opening an eye, ruining the meditative attempt, he shoots Dean a warning look. "And irritated."

"So, 'normal.'" Dean substitutes in, but he lapses into silence again when Cas doesn't rise to the bait. Dean's silences are never silent. Cas can feel him gesturing at Sam, holding some sort of wordless conversation with his younger brother, and he has never been particularly adept at tuning out Dean Winchester.

"You're distracting." Cas finally huffs, opening his eyes to Dean dropping his hands quickly, clearly having just been pointing at him.

"I didn't say anything!"

"You did it very loudly." Pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, Cas sighs. "I don't know. It feels. . . right." Both of the boys are watching him, now, and this could prove another inadvertent wedge, he knows. . . another reason not to trust him, the belief that he might be compromised. As much as he is attempting not to, though, he can't quite quell the surge of _hope_. Hope that will crush him if proved otherwise. "There may still be angels on Earth. They could just be trying to communicate, but with the warding and the hex bags. . ."

"You _want_ that to be what it is." Sam says, not entirely unkindly and, without looking at Dean, Cas inclines his head slightly admitting it. This is not a reasoned analysis, it is an extension of the same desperation that had driven him the night before.

Dean grunts, pushing himself off of the bed and shaking his head. "Well whatever it is, we should figure it out." This isn't the reasoned response, either: Dean is letting Castiel's hope guide him, rather than staying far away from Kansas and the high probability of a trap, but he's still chewing it over mentally. "I'm gonna hop in the shower now that there may be hot water again after you two hogging it. We can hit the road again after lunch. Sammy, you look for anything in Kansas that sticks out, omens or things that might point the way. Cas, you do. . . whatever the hell it is you were just trying to do."

Sam accepts his assignment with good grace, and with only a brief pitying look at Cas. As the younger Winchester settles in at the motel table again, Cas stares contemplatively at the closed bathroom door between them, before speaking into the silence as he hears the tap turn on. "You called me your brother, Sam. Last night."

Sam blinks as he looks up, a hand rubbing unconsciously at the back of his neck, and he shrugs his broad shoulders slightly. "Yeah, I did. You kinda _are_, Cas. I mean. . ."

Castiel nods slightly, accepting the unspoken. "I feel the same. And thank you, for accepting me into your family." Sam doesn't quite know how to respond to the formal tones, and it's a little late now for Cas to be asking _permission_ to marry his brother. He doesn't get the chance to question Cas's train of thought, though, as the fallen angel continues. "I assume then that I am expected and allowed to engage in the family customs and traditions?"

Sam's having visions of finally getting a frikkin' _wedding_ out of the two of them when he agrees. He doesn't expect Cas to turn away from his intent stare at the bathroom door, to fix an unabashed stare on Sam. "I believe you and Dean have a thirty minute rule. I would like to invoke it."

". . . What?!" Sam's spluttering and staring at Castiel, who adopts his most patient tone and thus makes things a hundred times worse.

"I intend to have sexual intercourse with your brother. Now. While we have a bed, and a shower. I would advise you to find another place to finish the research." After a beat where Sam is staring at him, Cas glances at the door to the bathroom again, and back to Sam. "For at least thirty minutes. If you would like to give us an hour, as it is the both of us that rule applies to now, I would not object."

". . . _What?" _

Catching the hem of his shirt in his hands, Castiel pushes himself out of bed, tugging the t-shirt over his head and tossing the sunglasses onto the nightstand when they fall free. "I'm uncertain as to if your repeatedly asking the obvious counts against my time, and Dean will be out of the shower in a moment, so. . ."

Sam gives up on trying to cram his laptop back into the bag and just sweeps both into his arms and bolts out the door. Castiel has already disappeared through the steam obscuring the bathroom by the time the motel door swings shut behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

"God, I missed beds." Even Dean's casual misuse of his Father's name doesn't stir Cas to disagreement this time, as he burrows his face into the pillow beneath him and hums his agreement just to prove he hasn't disobeyed a direct order and gone to sleep. Dean grins lazily, his arm heavy across Cas's back as he drags him closer, reveling in having a mattress, a clean husband, and having influenced the fallen angel enough that he could apparently terrify his brother into taking a hike.

He wishes he could have seen that.

"How's the head?" Without lifting his arm, Dean runs his fingers over the hair at the nape of Cas's neck as best he's able, until Cas turns his head and cracks one eye open, looking at him from across the short space of inches they allowed themselves.

"I'm too tired for double-entendre." Dean guffaws, and Cas presses closer, stealing the sound from his lips with a brief kiss, smug at having been able to win the laugh from him. "Better. My headache is better. Do you really want a bed?"

An unnecessarily serious-sounding question while he's trying to relax. How very Cas. Dean gives the best impression of a shrug he's able without moving more than absolutely necessary. "Be nice to not be sleeping on floors, yeah."

"You know that's not what I meant." Rolling onto his side, Cas braces his elbow on the bed, head on his hand as he looks down at Dean. Dean, in response, casually knocks Cas's elbow from underneath him and off-balances the angel, tugging him until he lays his head down on Dean's shoulder with a huff. Dean wasn't having _another_ serious relationship conversation where Cas was studying him the entire time like a bug in a box.

"You're asking if I want to get a place." Cas nods slightly, coiling his arm around Dean, who drags his fingertips up and down Cas's spine lazily as he considers the question. "You asking if I want out of hunting, too?" This time, it's Castiel's stillness that answers him, and Dean snorts quietly. "You wanna have this conversation, Cas, then you're a part of it. I'm not carrying this one on my own."

"You always wanted the normal life. I can't give you _all _of that, but. . ." Cas shrugs uncomfortably, and turns his face into Dean, breathing in the smell of skin and soap and falling silent again.

"This is about Lisa and Ben." Dean's not half as dumb as people like to think he is, and far more intuitive than he should be. He doesn't want to have this conversation, doesn't intend to dig up those ghosts again, but he knew what Cas had watched, now. What had kept him away. "I slept with a gun under my pillow, Cas, and holy water under the bed. Ben got into my hunting stuff and I flipped out. Every time I came home from work, I braced for finding bodies. I tried, Cas. I really did. But I couldn't relax. I'm not built for normal. Wish I was. If _you_ want to settle down. . ."

"I have everything I have ever wanted right here, Dean." Cas's voice is firm, his words unequivocal, but Dean shakes his head slightly.

"No, you don't. Cas, I get it. This is about _home_. Used to be, you had that. And even once you fell, it was still _there_, even if you weren't exactly getting invited back home for Sunday dinners." Cas doesn't say anything, and Dean sighs. Seems like he _is_ carrying most of this conversation again. . . but he knows Cas is listening. "Do you actually want to be doing this, Cas? Hunting, not the end of the world stuff. Or are you here 'cause of me?"

There's a long silence from Cas, and Dean waits through it without prompting him again, too loose-limbed and sated to be as tense as he should be when they were talking about the rest of their lives like there was going to _be_ such a thing.

"I have so much to atone for, Dean." Cas finally rumbles, releasing his breath in a low sigh that skates along the tattoo on the hunter's chest, and Dean tightens his arm around the other man, pressing a kiss to the top of his head without interrupting. "I don't know if that scale will ever be even. I think. . . if you had turned me away after I fell, I would have still tried to be a hunter. It's important, what we do. It helps people."

If Cas had tried to be a hunter without the Winchesters to smooth his technique over. . . Dean had his doubts as to how well that would have gone for him. The guy still ended up the silent partner any time they had to impersonate cops, just to not give them away. Dean refrains (barely) from saying something on the subject to sting Cas's pride though, because the angel was _including_ himself in it. He was a hunter now, and he chose it for himself, instead of being dragged along into Dean's life.

"I still would like a bed more often." Cas confesses after a beat of silence, and Dean snorts, grinning smugly.

"Yeah, I bet you would." Dean shifts, trying to see over Cas's head to the nightstand without displacing him. "How much time do we have left?"

"Not enough time for what you're thinking. Your brother must have allowed both of us to claim half an hour. Regardless, we're several minutes over." Cas responds, without having to check the clock, and he detaches himself from Dean's side reluctantly and gathers their clothes. "We should probably get dressed before he . . ."

The pounding on the door is loud, and insistent. Cas finishes dragging his jeans back on, throwing Dean his as the hunter sits up on the bed, hollering at the door. "Alright, alright, hold your horses. . ."

"Dean, open the damned door." Sam's voice is low and urgent, and Dean responds to it instantly, forgoing a shirt in favor of grabbing his gun and striding to the door as soon as he has his jeans on, opening the door to spill Sam inside and checking behind him, looking for a threat.

"What's going on, Sammy, what's. . ."

Sam has his phone pressed to his ear, and shakes his head at his brother tersely, immediately going over to stab the on-button on the television and pointing a finger at it indicatively. "Yeah, I'm still here, Jody. Gimme the address again, we'll meet you at your house and. . ."

Castiel sits down heavily on the bed in front of the television, eyes wide and gaze fixed on the silent image on the screen.

Dean's grabbing paper, ready to write down an address, right to business.

". . . Straight to Sioux Falls General?" Sam's shoving their possessions into bags without regard to whose it is, or how it goes. "Yeah, no, I understand. Just. . . let Bobby know we're on our way." Dean's eyes have locked onto his brother with the name, and he's grabbing their things from the nightstand, throwing Cas's sunglasses to him as he palms his keys.

"Bobby?" There's more worry in the one word than a sentence could have conveyed.

"Dean." Castiel reaches out for the hunter, trying to draw his attention, and is rebuffed in favor of hearing the end of Sam's conversation. Bobby Singer's fate is _important_. Cas is worried too. But the image on the screen mocks him, taunts them all, and the words beneath have made his blood run cold.

He grabs the remote control and turns the television volume up, to catch the words as they begin the reel again.

". . . an angel of the Lord." Her voice is sweet, calm, and the news ticker scrolling by below indicates the message was repeated in every major language. "And I am here with a message for the world."

Honey blonde hair frames an innocent face, her hands folded demurely before her, and she has changed her rain boots and winter coat into a flowing white dress, the portrait of artistic angelic nature. . . but it is Asmodeus, looking out through Claire Novak's so-familiar cerulean eyes, who offers a serene smile to the camera.

Her tiny bare feet are wet with blood, as she stands before the seal of the United Nations. Cas has to wonder where else she has gone across the world, to herald the end. He can't stay seated, he can't stay still.

"You have borne witness to the destruction of Mecca, of the Vatican, of Mexico City, Salt Lake City, Detroit, and Chicago. This is but the beginning. The time of reckoning is upon the world. You must make peace with your fate." The smile lights her eyes and makes her radiant, the image of innocence and beauty. Castiel steps in close to the television, until her visage is merely light and color, pinpricks of digital illumination resolved from liquid crystals and electric current, and he can almost convince himself that this is just another of her forms, the mockery of a being still composed of wavelengths of celestial intent. "Rejoice. You will soon have your reward."

In that moment, Asmodeus destroys any delusions that the world would ever return to normalcy.

Cas doesn't recognize that he's moved until Dean's behind him, roughly hauling him to sitting back down. He doesn't realize he's punched a fist into the television and cracked the display until he registers the lines of negative hues running from the fissure running through the motel's television screen. He hasn't done enough to justify being short of breath, but he's dragging in air like he'd run a marathon.

They don't have time for this. He knows it, knows that Dean is voicing the same thought, but it's distant.

He drags his shirt back on and beats the boys to the car, flexing his hand again and again, testing the cut across his knuckles. When they toss their bags into the trunk and tear out of the parking lot, there's no conversation among them.

Everything has changed.

. . .

Sioux Falls, South Dakota is slowly transforming into the template which Castiel thinks that any post-apocalyptic world should embrace. Following the widespread exposure to the supernatural that was obtained by its inhabitants during the breaking of the seals, the general populace has been aware of the danger surrounding them. Their city officials have difficulty denying the matter when their sheriff is quietly teaching her deputies basic defensive methods, and rock salt has become a staple in patrol cars even in summer months.

Jody Mills is a Hunter, in the archetypal responses to supernatural exposure. She has chosen to fight, chosen not to close her eyes to what is out there, but her dedication to protecting the people of her town has neatly enfolded protecting them against monsters as well as evil men. Castiel holds great respect for her in that.

That she would personally protect Bobby Singer, bring him back to Sioux Falls General and ward the hospital, has also given him a greater appreciation for her strength of character. It is strange, to be glad that he previously underestimated her. Strange to know that paying little attention to her prior is what has protected her from Asmodeus.

It is devastating to know that his high regard for Bobby Singer is what has landed the elder hunter in the hospital. But he is no longer depressed, no longer wallowing in self-loathing. Castiel has, in the span of a five minute newscast, mere moments of overheard phonecall, and ten hours of tense driving, become _furious_.

Bobby Singer is a part of Castiel's small human family.

Until this point, there had been a question that Castiel had quietly dreaded to answer. He had wondered if he could be the one to plunge the sword into Claire Novak's heart to destroy the angel living within his vessel's daughter. If, failing the exorcism he had no idea would work, he could kill _another_ angel and _another_ innocent. He had feared to answer, feared what it might reveal about him, about the kind of man he had become. Staring at the broken line of the highway as it blurred moving by, Castiel had been given his answer as he listened to the tense, quiet tones of the boys around whose existence he had redefined himself, and contemplated the images his worried mind devised for him.

If he had to choose between the family he had cobbled together for himself, and the daughter whose father he had callously stolen, he would choose the Winchesters. His tense conversation with Amelia Novak felt hypocritical, weighed heavy upon him. He could not condemn her for dishonoring her husband's memory, now, when he knew he was capable of the same.

Traffic on the highways had been insane, going into and out of cities, a panicked rush of humanity determined that things would be safer wherever they weren't. Eventually, Dean learned to avoid them, but every hour added onto the trip rankled. The news reports of rioting filtered through the car radio, but none of that is visible in Sioux Falls as they roll the Impala to a halt in a parking lot close to the building once reserved for police and emergency personnel. Jody Mills waits for them, bundled in the uniform of her office, and her hand waits on the butt of her pistol as she calmly commands them to run through verifying their identities.

There is no exchange of IDs, no false personas or FBI badges here. She doesn't relax until salt, iron and silver are dealt with, and all three of them tug at the collars of their shirts to show their tattoos intact. Hers is almost delicate in comparison, the points of the anti-possession symbol spreading no farther than the breadth of a quarter, etched carefully on her forearm where it is easily displayed. Demonic possession, when Castiel brought his war into her town just after his fall, made her rightfully cautious.

Each of her deputies, they learn, also carry the mark.

Leading them into the hospital, she is professional, competent, and collected. She is a leader, setting an example for her city, remaining calm to encourage others to do the same. When she reaches Bobby Singer's room, she rests a hand on Sam's shoulder to keep him from entering first, and there's something warmer in her voice and mannerisms than simply being Sheriff.

"So, Singer. Couple of strays followed me home. You up to company, or are you gonna be a cantankerous old coot and make me press that morphine button 'til you start with the embarrassing confessions again?"

"I ain't easily embarrassed. _Told_ you not to drag my boys here." Bobby growls hoarsely, pained, and it's the first true indication that the man wrapped in bandages upon the hospital bed is the fierce hunter who had taken them under his wing. Dean pushes past Jody in the door at the sound of his voice, Sam right on his heels, and Sheriff Mills plants a hand on Castiel's back and shoves him in after them, before taking up a post against the doorframe, where she can see down the hall and into the room.

"Like we needed dragged. Where else we gonna be, Bobby?" Dean doesn't quite seem to know where it's okay to touch Bobby. Bandages and burn cover his body, but it is the strip of fabric running across his eyes that draws Castiel's gaze, and he settles heavily into the chair against the wall, at the foot of the bed as the Winchester boys hover over their surrogate father, feeling ill with regret, staring at them.

"Dealing with the shit that needs dealt with, boy. Not standing around useless as I am."

"What happened, Bobby?" Sam sounds impossibly young, lost, his voice hushed. "How did this. . .?"

"Asmodeus." Castiel supplies dully, and it's his first word in Bobby's presence. "You went to the panic room to retrieve materials."

"An' she tried to cook me alive in it." Bobby agrees roughly, and one bandage-swathed hand moves faintly, twitches as if he's trying to raise it, before falling back to the bed. "Bitch took my eyes."

Four words, and Dean's composure crumples. Turning, he looks away from Bobby, hands clenched into fists and head bowed.

Asmodeus had been unable to enter the panic room, once he made it down through the ruins of his home and inside: so she turned it into an oven, used the metal walls against him. By all rights, Bobby should be _dead_, and it was Castiel's fault. Tactically, if he had to choose _one_ lynchpin in the organization of the hunters, the cornerstone without which they would be vulnerable . . . it would be Bobby Singer. And Asmodeus knew what he did, now. She had every memory of standing outside of that room that Castiel had, every rare book and artifact he had glimpsed, how it opened from the outside, how it was constructed, and how Castiel had examined it thoroughly prior to following his orders and releasing Sam from its confines to break the final seal.

She waited until she could take both the place and the man out at once: because _Castiel_ would have done the same, were it him.

And because it would cripple Castiel's family. Because the boys love Bobby, and Bobby loves them.

Bobby gives the story in broken sentences, his voice raw and pained, but it's a simple story that Cas has already envisioned. It's not even heartening to hear that she disappeared rather than allow Bobby to croak out the last of the exorcism rite he'd penned and Sam had sent to the hunter.

The boys exchange looks that Castiel can't read, and doesn't try to. It's invasive enough, having him here. A nurse comes in, to chivvy them out, to bring it down to one visitor at most as the late time dictates, and as she putters around Bobby checking bandages and reading blood pressure and temperature and the myriad machines that surround the hunter, Castiel rises to his feet prepared to relinquish his seat.

Dean stops him, a hand coiling around his wrist in the hall.

"Cas, watch him okay? We gotta talk to the Sheriff. . . " He tips his head at the woman in question, who raises an eyebrow at him. "And make sure there's nothing left at Bobby's place. You got your sword?"

It is ridiculous question, and Castiel doesn't bother answering it. He has learned never to go unarmed: they'd made him a better hunter than _that_. "It should be one of his family, Dean. . ."

"You're part of this family now, Cas." Sam intones solemnly, and Castiel is certain he is missing something in their interaction, but he's too distraught to argue it, and his head aches too much to drag out a conversation they knew the end of from the moment Dean asked him to watch over something precious to him.

He reenters the room as the nurse is about to leave: she shows him the call button, tersely directs him on what to do if any of the machines alerted, and Castiel settles heavily into the chair again without responding. It's several minutes before Bobby speaks, and the sound surprises him.

"Assuming that's you, Feathers?"

"It's me." Castiel confirms, raising his head to look at the hunter across the room, whose face is turned towards the sound of his voice, even if he cannot (and never will again) see.

"Figured. You're the only one don't feel the need to fill a silence."

Cas nods, and realizes that Bobby doesn't recognize it as such, so he offers the only thing he can, as useless as it is. "I'm sorry."

"Times like this. . . miss the mojo."

He has never managed to make himself useful to Bobby Singer when he was injured, never been able to offer him the healing of his Grace. Bringing him back after Sam's fall into the Cage was for Dean's benefit, an attempt to make up for the fact that it was _Crowley_ who gave him his legs back. And now that he needs to be healed more than ever, Cas has none to give. He can only sit by and watch: he can't even pray on Bobby's behalf.

Ducking his head down in the dim room, Castiel presses his hands over his eyes, slouched low in the chair.

"At times like this. . . so do I."

. . .

"So." Dean watches the nurse leave Bobby's room, and the door swing shut behind Cas, before turning to his brother and speaking in lowered tones. "Trap?"

"Trap." Sam agrees. "We springing it?"

Jody Mills looks between the boys, eyebrows climbing her forehead. "Sorry, you think this is a trap, so you're gonna go stick your neck in it?"

Dean grins, an affected expression that does little to convey mirth, or joy. "Damn right we are."

"What about Castiel?" She tips her head at the door, hands tucked into the pockets of her brown uniform jacket. "You just gonna leave him here to wonder?"

Dean and Sam exchange looks again, and Sam inclines his head slightly to Dean, leaving the choice with him, as always.

"When we come back, we can fight it out then. If we don't, we've left the brains together to figure out how to stop all this." Dean would tuck Sam away in that room as well, if he could. But Castiel's head isn't in the game. . . and Dean doesn't want to risk losing him again.

Dean jabs a finger in the direction of the door, shooting a warning look at Sheriff Mills and giving his advice on the care and maintenance of fallen angels, just in case. "Just keep him outta the pharmacy, alright?"


	6. Chapter 6

"They're doing it all wrong y'know." Bobby's voice cuts through Castiel's brooding thoughts as he stares at the pages of his journal, silent and frowning, the pain in his head sharp and unending. At some point, he had given up on sitting in a darkened room and switched the lights on, reasoning (perhaps heartlessly, given the glare from the regularly interrupting nurse) that light or dark, it was no matter to Bobby now. He had hoped that bringing light into the room again would make it seem less like a cave, but it transforms it instead into a too-clean cage with sterile walls and only a tiny safety glass window inset in the door. Perched on the edge of the visitors chair as if denying himself the possibility of comfort was somehow part of the responsibility of being left to watch over Bobby, he had spoken only when directly spoken to, drew in on himself , tried to ignore his immediate surroundings, and allowed Bobby to drift wherever he was between drug induced sleep and pain-induced wakefulness.

He had assumed the morphine had taken hold again, put the hunter back into a pharmaceutical haze, and didn't expect to be addressed.

Addressed confusingly, no less. Glancing at the closed hospital room door, Cas closes his journal. "The nurses? I am concerned with how often they feel compelled to wake you, considering it's night currently, but. . ."

"No, bird-brain. 'S their_ job _to make all of us miserable. The boys. They're doing it wrong. You."

Addressed _very_ confusingly. ". . .Doing _me_ wrong? I'm not sure what. . ."

The sound wrung from Bobby is somewhere between a groan, a laugh and a cough. Castiel doesn't know what to make of it, except that it sounds uncomfortable. Bobby makes a concerted effort next to be clear, and his voice is stronger as he responds. "Movies every night. It ain't about the movies, boy. 'S about the books. Tried to teach him that, but Dean's a stubborn ass."

Rubbing the back of his neck, Cas doesn't argue the point. Dean _is_ stubborn. He doesn't know what to make of this random thought track, or if he should let Bobby go back to sleep. Bobby resolves that dilemma for him by speaking again, and this time Cas can _hear_ exasperation in his strained and hoarse voice. "There's no TV in here for the blind guy, Feathers. Wouldn't do me any good anyway. People keep walkin' in on me sleeping and it's making me twitchy. You keep getting quiet and I got no idea if you're here or not, and if I'm alone or surrounded by a dozen docs and two demons."

It's the most at once Castiel has heard from Bobby since he took up his post, and it sounds comfortingly, coherently like the Bobby Singer he knows. And to some extent, he can relate: his Grace had been so much more than simply his wings and his anima. Learning to be human was more than pop culture references and social mores, it was learning to live _without_. "You're disoriented."

Bobby grunts, and it's as much of an answer as a verbal response would be. Castiel is fairly certain his intelligence was just insulted again, in that grunt. There's agreement there, too, an uncomfortable admission that the hunter won't make aloud. It really is a remarkable talent, this unique communication method Bobby has honed. "I'm being _too_ quiet. And you. . ." Cas frowns, and he can't stare at the bandaged face before him without flinching, so he fixes on the barely visible tips of Bobby's fingers, cracked and bleeding and slick with antibiotic ointments where they show past the bandages. "You want me to . . . read? Books? Aloud?"

"Well, I ain't asking you to compose me poetry."

"Good. That's. . . good." Tucking his journal next to him on the chair, Castiel blinks, looking around him at the room. "There aren't any books in here."

"_Blind_, dumbass. Of course they ain't stacking books up at my bedside." Castiel has to remind himself how much Dean loves this man, at the tone. This angry, abrasive, condescending, irascible, paranoid man. He then moves on to reminding himself that much of this is pain and fear talking (though frankly, Bobby on a good day does not sound much different, and they have never established the easy camaraderie he displays with the Winchester boys at times). He reminds himself of this, and his duty to watch over him, that it is in good part his fault that he is in this state, and what Bobby Singer has done for the boys, and that this is essentially his father-in-law now, and responds only after he's contemplated all of these facts to their fullest.

"Of course. I will go find a book, then." His voice is level and polite. This is progress.

He does not respond to Bobby's next grunt. Which is most definitely insulting.

There is a book cart down towards the nurses' station and he squints at the titles, aware of eyes on him while he does. It makes the back of his neck prickle, and he bends his wrist, pressing the heel of his palm back into the tip of the angel blade strapped below his sleeve, and it is comforting. Rather than remain under scrutiny he is instinctively finding uncomfortable, he scoops up an armful of books, tucking them beneath one arm (leaving the blade free if he needed it) and strides back into Bobby's room, closing the hospital room door behind him and leaning against it for a moment, watching through the small, square window down the hall to ensure nothing was following him. As an afterthought, he addresses the still figure on the hospital bed again, trying to be reassuring. "It's me."

"I'll arrange a fuckin' parade then." Bobby grates out, and Castiel ducks his head, nostrils flaring, and goes through his litany of reasons to remain polite once more.

"I have books." He eventually manages, and he perches on the edge of the chair again, tucking his leather journal now into the waistband of his pants at the small of his back, secured there by his belt, so as to ensure it didn't accidentally end up with the hospital books, or abandoned. "I wasn't sure what you would want, and am unfamiliar with. . ."

"Just read me the titles, Cas." Bobby sounds exhausted, now, and for a moment Castiel regrets his previous uncharitable thoughts.

Bobby then proceeds to insult half a dozen books and Castiel, for picking them up, within a span of moments. Cas is down to three when he finally snaps back. "_Little House on the Prairie_. . . ?"

"Do I _look_ like an eleven year old girl to you?"

The book hits the pile at his feet with a thump as Castiel clenches his hands on the armrest of the chair, scowling at the figure on the bed, unmindful now of the bandages, or the damage, or fault, and entirely fixated on the man he knows is beneath. "Do you look like a child to me, Bobby Singer? Yes. Yes, you do. _All_ of you do. I may be unfamiliar with this. . . this random human _nonsense_, but I have been around since before your forefathers climbed out of the primordial ooze and I am _tired_ of being insulted as if I am ignorant for not having paid attention to every trivial piece of literary flotsam to be published, and every . . ."

"You done yet?"

Castiel is fairly certain Bobby can _hear_ his teeth grinding together. A modicum of respect for what he is: is this too much to ask for from _any_ of them? Apparently so. Apparently it always has been. "You are infuriating."

"Damn right." It's such a _Dean_ thing to take pride in that Castiel finds himself huffing out a laugh despite himself, pressing his thumbs to his temples and attempting to ease his headache away. This is a test of some sort: Cas just isn't certain if it's for him, some hazing ritual for having joined this family, or if this is Bobby keeping himself sharp despite the injuries, proving that regardless of how debilitating what was done to him it has not broken him.

"Just read me the other titles, Cas." Cas can hear the click of the button, see the twitch of Bobby's fingers that knowingly choose to release more morphine into his system, a steady drip into the IV beside him, and he knows that the hunter is in perhaps the worst physical pain of his life. Even his death at Stull had been abrupt, and the injury that left him in a wheelchair. . . the burns were worse. The loss of his eyes . . . it was terrifying. "Noddin' off here. Don't want to keep waking up to _Anne of Green Gables_ or somethin'. Unless you just feel like _talking_ at me for hours."

". . . I'll find a book." Castiel promises. Hours of conversation with Bobby seems ill advised. For both of them. Reaching down, Castiel scoops up the final three beaten up paperback books, stamped with the hospital's name. "_The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. . . ?"_

"That one." Bobby speaks over Cas's words, and the relief at finding something acceptable is sudden, and leaves him slumping in the chair clutching the book to his chest. "Heinlein's good. Movies of his stuff are crap. 'S perfect example. Start reading."

Bobby drifts back into unconsciousness to the sound of Castiel stumbling over Manuel's diction until he finds the rhythm of the hodgepodge language of the "Loonies," and if Castiel begins feeling unexpected empathy for a computer growing sentient, attempting to understand humanity, humor, life and who later starts a revolution to champion human rights, no one but he and Bobby ever need know.

. . .

The Impala rumbles to a stop on the outskirts of the junkyard, in the long fingers of ink-black shadows cast by the yellow electric lights Bobby spaced throughout Singer Salvage Yard, determined not to let any more zombie neighbors start sneaking up on him. Alone behind the wheel of the car, Dean stares at the ruin of the only home he'd really known since his first had burned to the ground.

Weeds are breaking through the pile of broken bricks and charred wooden beams that sits where the Singer home used to be. They're flattened to the materials beneath them and scorched, and when Dean opens up the car door and steps out, the smell of ash and ozone is all around him, and the few heat-blasted weeds growing up through the gravel crumble to dust beneath his boot.

This is Asmodeus's work, and recent, done long after the home had burned down in July only days after Castiel crashed into their lives as a human. If Dean hadn't been tense before, he most certainly was now.

He steps quietly, each motion slow and exaggerated, keeping his boots silent on the gravel beneath him: Bobby taught him this, during the brief attempts to teach him _hunting_ hunting. One foot in front of the other, gun low and to his side, eyes sweeping the familiar terrain before him. He feels it, first: the freaky intuition he'd apparently picked up as a side-effect of too much angel-mojo stitching his soul back together has the hair on the back of his neck standing up and he can _feel_ hostility aimed at him.

He walks on as if he hasn't noticed anything amiss.

He can see, here, where someone began clearing battered wood aside, a path towards the panic room. He can see gaps of burned flooring that squeaks beneath his boots now, and below it the void leading down to Bobby's basement. He tests each step to ensure it will hold his weight, and retreats when the ground beneath him groans.

Just a little closer.

He knows when the trap has closed: he's been waiting for that smell of sulfur, and he isn't scent-blinded by the ash consequently. He _expects_ the sudden crash of force that sends him face-first into flooring that gives way beneath him, and curls his body, muscles loose, to take the fall into the basement below.

Dean Winchester's gotten _damned _good at taking a fall. The demon dropping in behind him, landing lightly on his feet, is still a bit of a slap to the face. Fuckin' demons. . . they _cheat. _

Rolling, Dean takes himself to one knee, gun aimed at the black eyes of the demon before him, but he doesn't take the shot.

"Stupid." The demon sneers, standing in the middle of a floor coated with ash and strewn with debris. "You think we wouldn't be watching after she killed daddy dearest? That we wouldn't expect you to come back for whatever he was looking for?"

"Who said I'm not here for the pleasure of your company?"

The concrete walls of Bobby's basement aren't any softer for having been singed, Dean finds, and damnit he _hates_ these telekinetic types. He can taste blood, and it seems like he's managed to reopen his split lip while he's at it (thank you, drunk Cas).

Just a few more frikkin' inches, is that too much to ask?

He stills in getting back up, letting himself linger on the floor, and raises his head to glare at the demon and draw his attention, speaking over the groan of wood and not letting himself look at the small showers of falling ash behind him from the still-covered area of the basement, just on the other side of the jagged tear in the flooring he'd gone through.

"That all you got? Seriously? Where's your pals? Not radioing in the aerial backup now? Go ahead, call the angel bitch in. . ."

"Oh, I don't need to. I know just what to do with you." The force presses around Dean like a vice grip, as he's lifted and slammed into the wall again, kept there with the toes of his boots just barely skimming the floor, the air crushed out of his lungs. "You didn't get the memo, Winchester? You're _expendable_ now. Ain't no archangel planning to parade around in your skin. Hell, they _want_ you dead." Borrowed lips spread in a sneer, and Dean is pretty sure he's going to pass out if this keeps up much longer without any air.

Sam crashing through the floor and into the back of the demon with all of his considerable sasquatch-y bulk couldn't come at a more opportune time.

Then again, as Dean slides down the wall, feeling the rough concrete scrape a layer of skin off of his lower back where his shirt has ridden up, he figures he could have done with that about five minutes earlier. "Took you long enough, bitch." Dean gasps out, as Sam is scrambling backwards ungracefully on the floor towards him, before his brother hauls him up by the hand, bracing him as he gets his feet under him and grimaces at finding himself bruised up by the fall, dusting debris off himself.

"The gap in the fence is a lot smaller than I remember it from when we were kids."

"Your ass didn't fit through is what you're telling me, and almost blew the plan."

"It caught my _jacket_." Sam grouses. "And cut up my shoulders. And I think I just banged my knee up. But you're frikkin _welcome_ for the save, jerk."

"Don't bitch at me about the fall, you had dumbass here to soften the landing for you. I hit the concrete like a real man."

For all of their tension before, they might as well be having this conversation without the demon in the room at all, now that they're together. The reason why is revealed quickly as Dean crouches down low, only inches away from the being that had been trouncing him moments before, and sweeps a hand over the inch-thick collection of ash on the floor, revealing a line in red beneath, offering the demon a smug grin. "Stupid." He taunts, turning the earlier insult around on the demon. "You think Bobby Singer didn't know how to make a Devil's trap that'd keep? It's etched, stained, painted and formed into the damned _foundation_, asshole. Little fire don't get rid of that. But go ahead. Insult Bobby again. I _dare_ you."

It had been a gamble: that the foundation hadn't cracked in the heat, that they remembered exactly where the trap was in relation to everything else, that Sam would be able to creep up behind and make sure there weren't any other lookouts waiting for them, and could get them a perimeter set, but _everything_ they do is a gamble. It's about time one paid off.

"I think we should get back to the part where he was telling us their current orders." Sam finds the wall and leans against it, putting himself next to the singed and broken stairs and the charred remnants of the ladder Bobby had clearly used to get into the basement, before Asmodeus backed him into the panic room and turned up the heat.

Dean pushes himself up to his feet again, and holsters his gun, drawing out Ruby's knife instead and flipping it in his palm with an easy sort of familiarity. "Seems like a plan. So. . . let's talk."

. . .

"There are two doctors in here, now." Castiel's commentary doesn't garner a glance from the medical personnel until the continuation, in his low rumble for Bobby's benefit. "They are both human."

"Yeah, I caught that by the first part, and you not stabbing anyone. . ." Bobby's grumpy comeback is ignored as Castiel rises to his feet, back knotted and knees stiff from sitting tensely too long. The hospital room is small and confining, and while reading the book had distracted him, he feels even _more_ trapped every time he looks at Bobby. It's odd, how seeing the other man confined to the bed by tubes and wires and smothered in bandages, with people leaning over him and machines controlling his breathing makes _Castiel_ feel the confinement on his behalf.

"I need a drink . . ."

"Makes two of us." Bobby grouses, and Castiel knows he's discussing liquor, not actual thirst. He doesn't blame him. Given how raw Bobby's voice is, however, he assumes 'Hunter's Helper' would be ill advised. Pacing to the door, Castiel looks out the square window, and sees Jody in the hall, speaking into the radio mic clipped to her shoulder, her back to him. "Sheriff Mills is here, just outside. I am going to find coffee. I will not be long."

"Stay out of the pharmacy." Cas turns slightly and scowls at the hunter over his shoulder, knowing that he won't see it. His entire family knows of his predilection towards drugs abuse, but Bobby has only known since he went through withdrawal. He's never actually _seen_ Castiel on drugs, but apparently Sam had spoken to him.

It bothers him, for everyone's trust in his sobriety to be so damaged when he _still_ wasn't sure how things would have progressed. Then again, Bobby was pushing every button he could, continually. It's possible that this is in a similar vein to how he gives the Winchester boys hell recreationally, another way of showing affection, and that he is still thin-skinned on this topic.

"I said _coffee_ and I meant _coffee._" Cas mutters, and fixes a glare on the two doctors doing their best to pretend they are not eavesdropping on the conversation between these men. He could feel them staring at him, as he looked away. He wonders if Jody has told them of what he is, or if there was something about him that made them concerned. He hasn't been able to shake the feeling of eyes on him since he went for books, and it is making him more irritable.

"I will be right back." He doesn't wait for Bobby to respond, and he doesn't draw Jody's attention as he slips out of the room, closing the door silently behind him and disappearing around a bend in the corner of the hospital hallway, blindly letting his feet carry him far away, setting an aimless path just to reassure himself that there is _room _to do so. He does not want company as he braces himself against the wall of the waiting room, once he reaches it, sliding down to sit on the floor and breathes in deeply, trying to shake loose the feeling of being _trapped_.

It is enough that Dean knows. He has tried to keep Sam from it, as well. The idea of this pedestrian and distinctly _human_ weakness stings his already bruised pride, and there is no time for it now that things are so bad.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he brings his hands to his temples again and focuses on his breathing, trying to force the pain to abate and the tension to leave him. Instead, it gets worse. The feeling of being watched has increased tenfold, and a low hum of anxiety fills him.

He opens his eyes again, turning as he does, and looks directly into the wide fearful gaze of a child, frozen as still as a mouse in the shadow of a hawk.

"Please don't hurt me." Her voice is a quavering whimper, and Castiel's instincts are intact, the urge to protect this fragile creation of his Father's. . . but her terror is fixed on _him_, her warm brown eyes swimming with tears. "Please, don't. . ."

"I won't. I'm not. . ." Raising his head, looking for her parents, his gaze is caught instead by the flicker of color on the televisions throughout the waiting room, suspended from brackets on the walls and showing different news channels.

A picture of Jimmy Novak flashes by so quickly that he can almost convince himself he was mistaken, but it is replaced with a picture of Claire that is tucked between pages in his journal, that has been there since St. Louis, waiting for him to save her. Swallowing, Castiel presses a hand against the floor and rises to his feet again slowly, turning his head to take in another of the screens: this time, it is _his_ handiwork that looks back at him, an image of Jimmy with his arm slung around a younger Claire, both of them laughing and dressed for a hike . . . and beside it, the stained glass window he had left behind in Westboro, during the height of his madness.

_'Angel' linked to terrorist claiming to be 'God.'_

The child has bolted, terrified, and he can feel stares on him from the small crowd within the waiting room. Too many eyes, too many people, and there is no way to hide this now: he cannot go invisible, cannot erase what they have seen. Cannot undo the nurses, the doctors who have seen him and spread the word, either.

Their safety has been compromised once again by his past.

He has to get back to Bobby. . . _now_.


	7. Chapter 7

Jody Mills runs into Castiel on the way back to Bobby's room, and with a look he is aware that she knows. Perhaps she's known all along. He thought that she was guarding Bobby, Bobby's room, but her presence here. . . it was him, all along, that she was watching.

Squaring his shoulders, Castiel stalks past her, lets her fall in behind him, and leads the way to Bobby's room again without a word. _She_ announces them to Bobby, who waits a beat and then asks into the quiet, turning his head towards the sound of movement. "What's got a bug up your ass, Cas?"

Castiel doesn't answer, gathering the books and stacking them, just for something to _do_. It's Jody who speaks, leaning closer to Bobby and speaking in soft tones that Cas can pick up only snatches of.

". . . news media. . . photo. . . Novak. . . daughter." The book he had been reading hits the table rather harder than he intended, and Castiel has nothing left to do with his hands, bracing them atop the battered cover and letting out a harsh breath. There is no window to look out of here, save into the hallway and the stares of doctors that Jody had apparently warned of him, and he could pace the entire open space of the room in six cramped strides. He is _caged_ as effectively as if he had been taken into custody for his sins and heresies.

"Jody, mind giving me and Feathers here a minute?"

The sound of Bobby's voice freezes all of Castiel's muscles. He turns his head just in time to catch Jody leaning over Bobby, her lips grazing the bandages over the old man's face, before she stands and averts her eyes from Cas, color rising in her cheeks, and jerks her thumb at the door. "I, um. . . I've got one of my deputies on the way in just a minute. Gotta get him briefed, then when Dean and Sam get back, figured I'd settle you lot in at my place for the night."

She doesn't look at Castiel again as she flees the room, and he finds that he can't blame her. He does not want to see himself, either.

Cas waits, tensed, for Bobby to begin after the door closes behind her. Each second drags on, somehow slower than the one before, until he breaks first, speaking harshly, hands clenched into fists at his sides. "Are you planning to lecture me, now? Offer your wisdom and experience and tell me that this will all turn out for the best?"

"Actually, I was figuring you could use a minute to get your shit together without an audience." Bobby's gruff, honest words puncture Castiel's rigid control—they are so far from what he expected. His hand finds the arm of the visitor's chair, and he falls into it heavily, burying his face in his palms.

Bobby's silence is comforting, this time. Castiel has been doing his best to fill the quiet for Bobby, to give him a distraction, and now the old hunter is offering him the best he can in return. He knows Bobby's awake, knows he's thinking, that sharp mind considering the situation, even dulled as it is by drugs and pain, but he has been given a respite, however brief.

He pulls together his scattered thoughts as best he's able, and organizes them rigidly. Battle strategy. They need to determine how to adapt to this change in their situation. "She is playing off of my memories of the Whore of Babylon, and what I know of the tactics War used. Sowing seeds of discord and playing faith against human fear. Either people will riot, turn against each other, or they will simply cease productivity and await the end. They cannot have their _foretold_ Apocalypse, so they are fashioning a new one."

Bobby lets him finish, and responds rationally. "She's deliberately throwin' you under a bus, doing it herself. Any reporter worth their salt'd be able eventually to turn up who she was, from the missing persons report Amelia filed, and it ain't that hard afterwards to find out about you, Feathers. If you've been deluding yourself into thinking the big God Debacle disappeared just 'cause . . ."

"Don't." Cas begins, and Bobby talks right over him, straining his voice to do so.

"No, _Castiel_, you're gonna listen this time, whether or not you wanna keep up with some dumbass competition about who's got most right to be the grumpy old man in this room. You're gonna shut your piehole and hear out the person who's been dealin' with the concept of a big damn shame since before you could _feel_ that kinda emotion, you got me?"

The outburst seems to have taken something out of Bobby. After a moment, Cas leverages himself to his feet, and pours water into the cup left on the bedside table, shaking a few ice cubes into it as well, and holds the straw to Bobby's lips as he has seen the nurses do several times now. "Drink. If you hurt yourself yelling at me, I will never live it down with Sam and Dean."

"Yeah, yeah, bite me." Bobby grumbles under his breath, but he takes the drink anyway, and whether he feels embarrassment at needing the assistance Cas would never be able to tell through the bandages and the gruff persona. "Alright, pull the chair closer Feathers, and sit your ass down, 'cause I ain't going through this twice."

Reluctantly, Castiel sets the cup of water back down and does as he's told. He has been a soldier for far too long to balk at such simple orders, regardless of how little he cares to hear them, and some part of him still recognizes this as _acceptance_ however veiled, and Bobby _is_ human and someone whom the boys go to for advice. He will listen, for now.

"We all got shit we wanna self-edit out of our lives. More you stick your neck out, more likely it is your crap isn't gonna stay private for long. Those boys? They're lucky any day they _aren't_ tossed in jail. . . and they walk into damned police stations across the country every week anyway, because they gotta risk it. Me? Hell, Cas, what you and they don't know about me could fill a book. I've screwed up plenty, trust me. Jody out there still threatens to arrest me at least once a week, and she's got plenty to go on for it. We get that you were tryin' to do something right. . . but when you fuck up you don't do it in half-measures, boy."

Cas huffs quietly, ducking his head, and allows the term to go unquestioned for once. Bobby is struggling to speak, now, and Cas knows that his injuries go beyond the gruesome damage done to his skin and eyes.

"Them putting a face to what you did was a matter of time. So you're a criminal, a murderer, and an outcast. We all are. You gotta ask yourself if it's gonna stop you. Then ask if what the talking heads have to say means a damn thing to you. 'Cause the only people whose opinions you _should_ give a damn about? We knew already, idjit, and forgave you."

Bobby falls silent, and Castiel stares at him, hands folded in his lap and mind whirring. It doesn't take long for Bobby to grow impatient again, deprived of sight to give him cues as to what was happening. "Don't tell me you fell asleep, 'cause I ain't repeating. . ."

"There are times when it is obvious why Dean and Sam love you, and what you have given to them that no one else has ever offered. I wish. . ." Castiel's voice is quiet, and he leans forward, raising a hand and then hesitating. There is nowhere on Bobby where he could clasp the other man affectionately without harming him, and it is frustrating. He knows that this is not a family that _hugs_, but Bobby has clapped him on the shoulder several times now, and he wishes he could return the gesture.

He should be able to _fix_ this.

He sits there, hand awkwardly hovering over Bobby's shoulder, staring down at the bandages below him, frozen by his thoughts. Bobby rouses him from it eventually and by the frustration in his tones, it is not the first time he has attempted to get his attention. Dragging the chair forward, he clears his throat and shuffles anxiously.

"I would like to try something."

"I know I'm apparently damned loveable, but you ain't kissin' me, if that's where you're going."

Cas blinks, and looks down at Bobby in confusion. "No, Bobby, I'm not physically attracted to you in that way."

"Well that's damned reassuring." Bobby mutters, and then speaks up to clarify. "Don't tell me you're attracted to me in some other way, Feathers, 'cause you. . ."

"You carry a piece of my Grace. It's small. . . I have never considered it, given how much I have put into Dean and into Sam, but I have touched _your_ soul as well. And I have brought you back from the dead. I think. . . I would like to try something. It might help you." Shuffling closer, he rests his hand over the bandages across Bobby's forehead, and closes his eyes.

"What, like healin' me?" Bobby is old enough, world weary enough and has been let down enough by Castiel's sporadic involvement in their lives that he doesn't try to muster up hope.

Cracking one eye open, he looks down at the blind face of his husband's mentor, his _friend_, and sighs. "I am not an angel. I cannot give you back your eyes. But if I can excite that piece of Grace within you. . . I think I may be able to speed the healing process. Undo some of the nerve damage and the threat of infection the doctors are discussing."

It wasn't eavesdropping if he was sitting _right there_. And he is quiet, not unobservant.

"This gonna hurt you?" It's a foregone conclusion that Bobby is willing to take this risk for himself, it's the kind of man he is: a gambler, willing to risk loss for the potential of greater gain. Castiel's lips quirk faintly at the corner, and he closes his eyes again and seeks out that part of _himself_ that is woven into Bobby's being.

"It seems likely."

But while Castiel is barely acquainted with what kind of man he is himself, as a human, he knows from millions of years of experience that the threat of pain hasn't ever stopped him.

. . .

It's funny how a place known for burning heat and blazing fires can leave a man so cold. Dean took his share of the flames, knew every possible way you could apply them, too, to leave a man screaming, but when he thought of Hell he thought of ice. How it seeped into your soul after a couple of years on the other side of the blade. How it could make you capable of just about anything.

The entire basement smells like fire and ruin and blood and iron, and he never wanted to be here again.

There's a demon strung up before him staring at him with unmistakable fear, and he stopped letting himself think of how much closer this brings him to the Dean he met in the future about the time he stopped holding back on his brother's account, when Sam hauled himself back topside with the excuse of keeping an eye out to make sure nothing snuck up on them.

Which is good. He doesn't want his brother seeing him like this.

Hunkered down in a crouch, elbows across his knees, Dean waits for the demon's black eyes to fix on him again, rubbing blood off of his hands and onto a rag that _should_ be in Baby's trunk for him to use in getting grease off of his hands, but was stained in layers of old, rust-colored blood already.

"You were saying something about Asmodeus's plans." Dean prompts quietly, and the demon thrashes, bound wrist to ankle, muscles in his neck corded and taunt and teeth bared. The hissed denials, the flash of terror at the name, Dean knows what he's looking at, and he sees _opportunity_ there. Crowley, for all he got his hands on a ton of monsters during the Purgatory search, is an amateur when it comes to this. Even Meg, she gets overeager for the pain and misses out on the important thing. It's the fear that breaks people, the seed of doubt. . . it's about pushing the right buttons.

Rising to his feet, Dean walks over to the duffle bag he'd had Sammy drop down to him. It was one of the tricks of a true professional: don't show all your tools at once. That's an amateur's ploy, a shock and awe start when it's the slow build that makes the difference. Always leave them wondering what's still in store, what horrors could be behind door number two. He's seen the demon lick his lips and look at the bag in fear several times already, and now he digs to the bottom, and pulls out a cloth-wrapped bundle from below his clothes and weapons. "You're scared of her. I get that. She's a scary angel bitch, innit she? And you, you're just a piss-ant demon, got dropped here to pick up strays, report back if you ran into anything interesting. Here's the thing I think you're missing, though. . ."

Dean unwraps the bundle slowly, keeping fabric between his skin and the blade beneath, an archaeologist handling an artifact, and even with his stomach twisting sickeningly, he keeps the feeling out of his voice and off of his face, cold and impassive.

"Me, I know angels. Better than anyone, really. And yeah, they're scary powerful, but you know what they aren't?" Alastair's blade, dropped to the floor of a cave in Utah, used last to bring Asomodeus and Ba'el into the world again, holds a razor edge even without care. Dean's blood, Castiel's blood, it's dried onto the handle of the straight razor, but seems to have vanished right off of the blade itself, like it had been drunk into the very metal of the thing. It was always ready for more blood. Dean would know. He'd spent thirty years under this razor.

"_Creative. _Angels aren't creative. She'll smite the hell out of you. . ." Dean doesn't even allow himself to appreciate his own pun. ". . . But that's all you have to be afraid of."

"She's _drinking_ us." The demon argues, almost a panicked whine with his eyes fixed on the blade, and that's just the kind of information Dean really wishes he didn't need. Asmodeus was feeding Claire demon blood, like Lucifer had Sammy, keeping the vessel fresh and strong.

God, the poor kid.

Examining the blade, Dean continues as if he hadn't been interrupted, because the scare tactic is working, clearly. "Last time angels needed someone tortured, they called_ me_, had me stick Alastair himself up on a rack. . ." Dean waggles the blade indicatively, still holding it with the fabric between himself and the metal. "This was his, you know.

He doesn't want to touch it.

He doesn't want to be _close_ to it.

And yet, he couldn't get rid of it, either.

"You really don't want me to have to cut answers out of you." Dean's words are just above a whisper, as he regards the blade, holding it close to his eyes and turning slowly, and this is _truth_. Everything he's said is truth. And that's what makes it scary.

The demon talks.

Then again, Dean always knew it would.

It dies with Ruby's blade buried in its heart and light flashing behind its skin. Alastair's blade, unused, goes back into the bag as Dean calls out for Sammy to help haul him back up. His brother looks green around the gills, and Dean avoids his gaze as he throws the bag in the back and himself into the driver's seat, tearing out of the junkyard.

"Dean, are you. . . ?"

"Later." Dean's breaking speed limits, digging into his jacket pocket and pulling out his phone, throwing it into Sam's lap. "Call Cas. Now."

It's a credit to how Sam's been raised that he starts dialing before asking the question. "Why are we calling Cas, what's. . .?"

Dean's hands twist the wheel expertly, and nearly four thousand pounds of American steel makes a hairpin turn that his beloved muscle car, for all her many strengths, was not designed for. Sam curses sharply, nearly dropping the phone, and braces himself with a knee against the dash and a hand clinging to the handle above his door.

"Shit, Dean!"

"This was a two-part trap, Sam. And we ain't the target any more."

. . .

Someone cries out, and Cas isn't sure if it was him or if it was Bobby. For a moment, the lines are blurred: sharp, stabbing pain lances through Castiel's head, originating behind his eyes, and for a split second he stupidly finds himself terrified that _he_ has lost _his_ eyes, as his mind and body revolt against him. His back hits the tile floor of the hospital room, the chair off-balancing into the wheeled medical table beside him, and the convulsion ends with him watching small cotton squares drift down from the table lazily, like sterile, square woven snowflakes to land around him on the tile.

He can taste blood in his mouth, and there's a telling slickness at his nose and running from the channels of his ears. His heart is racing, his muscles trembling as if he'd closed his hand around a high-voltage line, and his head. . .

Castiel hasn't prayed at all in nearly half a year, now. It's only that resolve that keeps him from it now, for the headache that has followed Castiel since the day ash wings burned out behind him in a fallow field not far from here, that only ever had abated with the involvement of narcotics and opiates in combination, has increased threefold.

Above him, hanging over the hospital bed, Bobby Singer's bandaged hand clenches partway into a fist. This is a _good_ sign. This is sign that the gamble has paid out. Of course, Cas did not stop to consider that increased nerve response and decreased damage to them would subsequently increase the body's ability to feel _pain, _in the short-term.

Medical alerts are sounding, sensors and monitors attached to Bobby going mad, and the sounds crash into Cas as he rolls to get his hands beneath him, head hanging down, on hands and knees as he begins the process of making himself vertical to help. When strong hands find his arms, hauling him to his feet, he doesn't resist them at first.

It's only when he lifts his head and looks directly past the fleshmask into the eyes of the ghoul wearing the skin of Sheriff Mill's deputy, and sees the abomination whose borrowed visage shows that Bobby's regular doctor has been recently consumed, that he understands just how poorly timed his experiment was.

At their feet, Castiel's phone begins to ring, a warning just a few minutes too late.


	8. Chapter 8

_She's got eyes of the bluest skies . . . _

Sam had programmed the ringer on Cas's phone as a joke on Dean, and Castiel has never bothered to learn how to change it. It gives the entire scene a surreal feeling, a disjointed soundtrack for a few scant seconds where everything is up in the air.

This is a moment in which things could have gone very wrong. A moment in which Jody Mills is still shouting at the doctor to do something for Bobby, distracting one of the two ghouls inadvertently. A moment in which the creature with its foul hands grasping Castiel's arms could have ripped into him immediately and torn him apart in its strong jaws. Ironically, it is Castiel's _weakness_ that saves him. If he had been in better condition, if the light hadn't been stabbing at his eyes, if the room hadn't been swimming, he would have tensed. He would have stared into those eyes and in moments revealed how terrible his 'poker face' was.

The fake deputy's pupils are blown wide, eyes tracking the blood running from Castiel's nose over his chin, trickling down the curve of his jaw from his ears, and it breathes in deeply the smell of broken, overripe vessel, of fallen angel blood, feeling weakness in the stumbling creature before him.

The Winchesters have always projected an air of violence, prior to moving into it. Looking at Dean Winchester and the tension he carries in his limbs, even when he was still he seemed coiled to spring. He could make a smile into a threat. Sam, it was purely physical: no attempts to make himself seem smaller would fool anyone into assuming the young, broad-shouldered giant was completely harmless.

Jimmy Novak was an ad salesman from Illinois. Putting a Seraph within his form is natural deception, and even after months of building lean muscle and gathering scars he is still relatively unimposing.

Castiel has consequently demonstrated a surprising talent for sudden redirection and violence that Dean has smirkingly admired from him, usually with a veneer of innuendo and just a bit of pride: he goes from "0 to 60 in no time flat." Another car allusion, one of many that Castiel quietly ignores.

Hands loose at his side, slumped into the ghoul holding him upright, Castiel moves with an instinct honed in battle and no physical cues of his intent. The angelic blade strapped to his forearm slams into the gullet of the ghoul in front of him, and he uses the equal and opposite force to leverage himself out of its grasp, rather less gracefully than he would like, but it's effective nonetheless. What's less effective is how it drops him on the ground once more.

And how Jody Mills quite suddenly has her pistol aimed at the man who had apparently attacked her deputy, unprovoked.

_. . . hate to look into those eyes and see an ounce of pain. . . _

The angelic blade in his hand is is tacky with partially congealed blood, and Castiel doesn't wait to see if she will pull the trigger. He cannot bank on her hesitation: Jody Mills is a law enforcement officer and a hunter, and she has seen the dearest people in her life turn monster or die at their hands. Regardless of who he is and whose family he now belongs to, if she believes him turned she will shoot to kill.

Cas snaps one booted foot out, hand braced against the tile, other raised with the sword held parallel to the floor and between him and all oncomers, and sends the medical table careening into her as hard as he is able, knocking her back and putting a barrier between her and the ghouls.

He cannot offer Bobby the same protection, and white-hot pain lances through his head again as he subconsciously struggles to draw on the power that had protected Sam and Dean in Utah, to weaponize that fragile spark of Grace he'd carved into a semblance of a soul in his Fall. Nothing responds but more pain, and they seem to _know_ that he is out of 'mojo' now. The 'doctor' at the ailing hunter's bedside has a hand to Bobby's bandaged throat, ignoring the high pitched alert of the equipment surrounding him, and _grins_ at Castiel as he flexes his fingers, prepared to rip Bobby's throat out. The second ghoul, wearing the face of the deputy, flings himself on Cas, blocking his view, hands coming to cup his face with its nails driving into his cheeks as it licks a stripe up the side of his face with a hissing laugh, chasing the trail of blood along his skin.

"Delicious little angel. . ."

. . . _Sweet child o' mine, oh oh oh oh sweet love of mine. . . _

Teeth sink into the flesh of his shoulder, and gunfire rings through the room: three rounds, rapid, and the sound is deafening, disorienting, but he can feel curiosity drag the creature upon him's head up to look, Castiel's flesh between its teeth and his blood running down its chin.

He drives the angelic sword up through the bottom of that chin, the sharp point spearing from its jaw and through to the roof of its mouth, effectively clamping its jaw closed around its stolen bite of angel, and into the brain. He braces to roll them, one hand keeping the sword there, forcing its mouth shut, while his other hand yanks the ka-bar knife Dean had given him in his first days of humanity free from of his jacket, flicking his wrist to throw off the leather sheath, and he begins brutally hacking its head off.

Jody Mills is in a prone shooter's position of the floor, hands braced around the butt of her pistol, and every round expertly placed into the skull of the 'doctor' who had threatened Bobby.

The phone goes to voicemail and the song stops.

Cas rolls to the side of the beheaded monster and stares up at the underside of Bobby's hospital bed from the floor, each breath a struggle, the pounding in his skull agonizing. After a moment, he reaches a hand up above him, and fumbles slightly before achieving his aim.

He presses the nurse call button, just as he was instructed to.

He will let Sheriff Mills explain the bodies.

Her face swims into view above him, her dark hair falling free from its confining ponytail to frame her face in straggling whisps, and she scowls down at him as she offers him one hand to help haul him up, the other still holding her gun by her side. "Next time, just _say_ 'they're ghouls.' Don't make me have to find out by seeing their reflection on a tray while I'm about to shoot _you_."

Cas huffs quietly, heavy against her as she braces him upright, and her chastising words cease suddenly as she takes in his ashen, blood-covered face.

When the doctors pile into the room, working around the corpses on the floor, she turns Cas over to them as well.

. . .

"Sir, I'm sorry, family only. . ."

"He's my _husband_." It's the first time Dean's said it in public the way Castiel always has, without hesitation, and the nurse trying to bar him looks away guiltily, shaking her head slightly. "I'm sorry, sir, but South Dakota doesn't recognize any form of same-sex. . ."

"Well fuck South Dakota, then." Dean growls angrily, and drags a palm down his face. He's going about this the wrong way and he _knows_ it, but he is in no frame of mind to charm his way past a pretty nurse. "Okay, let's try this again. You've got monsters crawling around this place, and I'm here to kill them if they come after him again, so let me into the room." He pauses, and tacks on as an afterthought a smile that is apparently less flirtatious than intimidating. "Please."

She doesn't get the chance to answer. They both hear a resounding "No." from the room and she glances behind her at the closed door. Gently, Dean takes her by the shoulders and moves her to the side, and then steps in to find another small battle in progress.

"Castiel. . ." The doctor in the room is putting the emphasis in the wrong places, reading off of his chart the name, and it ruins the attempt to sound soothing. "We need to get the CAT scan. I believe you have intracranial bleeding that is. . ."

"Dean." Castiel has always been able to convey so much in how he says the name. Dean's been in the room less than thirty seconds and he knows already what the problem is from the set of Cas's shoulders, the naked relief in his eyes, and how he's breathed out Dean's name. Plus, from the fact that Cas has positioned himself defensively on the other side of the room from the CT machine in the middle, as if it is an enemy.

Or a cage.

Kind of a give-away.

The doctor looks back and forth between the two men, and to the nurse helplessly lingering in the doorway, as if deciding if she should try to pull Dean back out and determining that she had other things she ought to be doing. Tired, haggard, and having seen the body of a friend and coworker twice already today, between the partially consumed hunk of human remains and the repeatedly shot ghoul, he is willing to take whatever help he can get with this particularly troubling patient.

"Your friend. . ." the nurse blushes and shuffles in place ". . . needs a CAT scan, but became agitated. . ." Castiel's gaze swings to the doctor, eyes narrowing into a fierce glower until Dean touches a hand to his elbow warningly ". . . and intimidated when he saw the equipment." Dean coughs, trying not to snicker at the phrasing.

This is the most silently interrupted single sentence that the doctor has ever uttered in his life. He's left slightly bewildered by the entire interaction.

"I got this, Doc." Dean promises, which only raises Castiel's hackles farther, as he clenches his hands into fists and straightens without going a step nearer to the CT machine, the tight enclosed space he would be expected to wait in.

"If you would prefer, we can give you something to relax you and. . ."

"_No_." Castiel has rebuffed the offer before Dean can even think to, vehemently. The doctor blinks, and takes a step back, raising an eyebrow slightly and folding his arms around his clipboard at his chest. "Very well. . ." He speaks slowly, calmly, non-threatening and without pushing the subject of the sedatives. "Mr. Winchester, you are showing signs consistent with cerebral hemorrhaging. We need to be able to see the extent of the damage to determine . . ."

"I have a headache." Castiel counters stubbornly, determinedly not looking at the CT scanner. "I'm accustomed to them. I will be fine."

"Your 'headache' involved bleeding from your ears and nose, and there is blood in your tear ducts. I'm not certain how you're _standing_. . ."

"Doc, just give us a second." Dean repeats, tightening his grip around Castiel and tugging him to the side. The doctor steps back, giving them a semblance of privacy, and listens to the whispered concerns of the nurse, before impatiently sending her back to work. If the breaking of hospital protocol was the worst thing to happen for the remainder of his day, he considered it an improvement over the horrors of the rest of it.

Dean turns Cas towards him, careful of his bandaged shoulder as he curls his hand to the back of Cas's neck, resting his forehead against Castiel's and closing his eyes. His voice is a hoarse whisper, and he wishes he didn't sound quite so worried. "You got changed, seen by docs, and all the way to the CAT scan room _then_ freaked out. Tells me you know something's wrong, Cas."

"It tells you that Jody Mills is a singularly frustrating woman, and fond of giving orders." Cas responds in his normal tones, but he doesn't pull away. Lifting his head, Dean raises an eyebrow at the fallen angel, who stares back at him challengingly.

". . . You got _mommed_, Cas? That's pretty frikkin' funny."

"Yes. Hilarious." Cas deadpans, but his eyes are narrowed and he's taking in Dean's appearance with a frown. "What happened? Are you and Sam. . . ?"

"We're fine, Cas." Dean shrugs off the concern. "You're the one I'm worried about. He thinks you're bleeding in your brain, Cas . . ."

"I'm _aware_ of what 'intracranial bleeding' means, Dean." Cas snipes, but his eyes are tight, lips pressed into a line, and Dean can tell he's in pain. He doesn't know if it's encouraging that Cas is handling it, or disheartening to think. . . this is a level of pain Cas can _handle_. How bad _had_ his headaches been all along? "I'm fine. We need to be ensuring that there are no more ghouls in the. . ."

"We've got Sam and Sheriff Mills on it, Cas. You and me, we can get back to work once we find out . . ." Cas makes a noise in the back of his throat, already disagreeing, and Dean changes tacks. "Look, Cas, _I'm_ worried. We're doing this. I'll be here, and you'll be okay. Okay?"

Cas scowls, looking away, but Dean knows he's won. "'Sides. You got all dressed up for it and everything." He leers, tugging on the cotton hospital gown. "Be a shame not to go through with it after all that. Unless you're wearing this for me . . ."

"This is not an episode of Doctor Sexy, Dean." Cas sighs.

"Could be." Dean waggles his eyebrows. "Doc wants you to relax. . . I know what makes you relax. This could work."

"I've been human less than a year, Dean, and _I_ know that is the kind of plan that only works in pornography." Cas turns back to the doctor to the sound of Dean laughing quietly, his head high and shoulders squared, and he grits his teeth through the entire procedure.

Dean can tell something is off before the doctor says anything. Standing within the shielded room on the other side of the window, he can't make heads or tails of the images coming up on the screen, but he can read the hell out of _people_ and the doctor isn't reacting like a man looking at a routine test. "Debbie, we're going to need to run a PET. If you'd please go inject the tracer FDG." Clicking the microphone, the doctor's voice is deliberately calm as he addresses Cas. "Castiel, we are going to inject a contrasting agent and run another test concurrently, to keep you from having to do another round of testing. Are you comfortable?"

"No." Castiel growls tersely in response, but he doesn't attempt to drag himself out of the machine. "Nothing about this is designed for comfort. I would prefer to get this over with as quickly as possible." Dean leans forward, asking the doctor for permission before clicking the mic.

"He's working on it, Cas. Just a little while longer, okay buddy?"

"You only ever call me buddy now when you are patronizing me, or distancing yourself for audience. Don't."

Dean smirks faintly, clicking the mic again as he leans over the doctor's shoulder. "Okay, let's try this one then. Hey. Assbutt. Shut up and let the doctor do his job, and quit your bitching. Better?" He doesn't hear Cas's huffed agreement, because the doctor has his attention, leaned forward to squint at the screens, setting his coffee down with a heavy clink on the table. "What's up, doc?"

Licking his lips nervously, the doctor glances from the screens to Dean, and back to the screens again, gesturing, his voice lowered to keep it from drifting out of the room and fear in his eyes. "At . . . at the risk of sounding crass. I don't . . . I . . . Wh-what the hell _is_ he?"

When Dean doesn't answer immediately, dragging over the other rolling chair instead and seating himself beside the doctor, and the man tenses as if expecting an attack. "Mostly human, these days. And one of the good guys, no matter what you see on the TV. So tell me what it is you're seeing."

"He's not human." The doctor says definitively, and God how the years had changed his concept of the term. From the day patients he had declared dead, that he had _autopsied_, after months and even years climb out of their graves and into their everyday lives, to the day they went zombie, and on through today's ghouls, every incident of possession and onward, the doctors of Sioux Falls General Hospital are on the front lines of weird in this town where the supernatural is becoming accepted as fact. Still, there's not a question in his voice at that statement, and he points his pen at the screens, directing Dean's gaze.

"That? That's a cerebral aneurysm, that bulge off of his vertebrobasilar junction." Clicking the mouse, the doctor changes the view and points again. "As is that, at the medial frontobasal artery. And that, there, as well. A single aneurysm, it's not uncommon. One in maybe fifteen people will have an aneurysm at some point in their lives, and they will be asymptomatic unless they rupture. There, that darkened area, is a hemorrhage caused by a _ruptured_ aneurysm. And there, that's a slow bleed. The mortality rate for _one_ of these is. . ."

The PET scan images load on the screen, and the doctor falls silent again, before clicking on the image and directing Dean's gaze on it, speaking aloud for himself as much as anything. "_This_. . . this is not how the brain _functions_. It's not. . ." The doctor shakes his head and chews on his lip, raising his eyes to look at the camera feed of Castiel, the fallen angel's eyes closed, muscles in his jaw bunched, forcing himself to stillness on the medical bed within the confining scanner, counting each deliberate breath mentally. When the doctor speaks again it is with a note of fear in his hushed voice. "That is a human _brain_, but it is not a human _being._"

Staring at an image of bright points and creeping dark smears, and beside it a brightly colored wash of lights painting the interior of Castiel's head, Dean lets his breath out slowly and turns to the doctor. "No, he's not. You're right, he's not human. What Cas _is, _is the last angel we've got on our side. So how do we keep him on his feet and _alive_?"

"You don't understand. Looking at this. . . I don't know how he's not _already_ dead."

. . .

Castiel is rubbing his temple again and for the hundreds of times Dean has seen the gesture, it's the first time he can't rip his eyes away from it. He should have noticed, should have. . .

"Stop that, Dean." Cas chastises him, bloodshot blue eyes fixing on his face. "I'm fine."

"Saw pretty compelling evidence to the contrary, Cas." Dean counters softly, and Cas ignores him as he doubles over in his chair and finishes lacing his boots back up. "We gotta talk about this, man."

"There's nothing to talk about, Dean. We need to get back." Pushing himself out of the chair, Cas tugs the clean flannel Dean had brought him from the car straight again, and smoothly steps around the hunter and out the door. Dean catches up with him three steps into the hall. Taking Cas by the wrist, he's unprepared when turning Cas towards him becomes Castiel stepping into Dean's arms abruptly, free hand rising to knot fingers into the hair at the crown of Dean's head. He kisses Dean fiercely, without embarrassment or hesitation despite their public setting, trying to pour reassurance into his actions even if he cannot convince Dean in words.

"So. _Bad_ news, then." Jody surmises astutely from a few paces away as Dean and Cas step away from each other reluctantly, her arms folded and her eyes fixed on the two of them.

"Is Bobby. . .?" Dean doesn't know if he should find it warming that Cas has become so invested in _his_ family that his first concern is Bobby, or if he should take it as another sign that Cas is deflecting. Jody is watching Cas with a narrow-eyed analytical stare, as if she can peel back the layers of him and determine for herself what's wrong. . . and it _is_ a little intimidating, Dean has to admit. Maybe he shouldn't give Cas so much trouble for letting her order him around.

"He's waking up and being the stubborn pain in the ass that _he_ is." She doesn't even bother to hide behind mere implication. "Which is going around lately, seems like. C'mon. I'll lead the way, before he decides to try and check himself outta ICU."

It is, inevitably, almost precisely what Bobby is attempting to do. Sam's bitchface is in full effect as he turns to his brother, jerking his thumb at Bobby. "Okay. _You_ try talking to him, before he tries to take his IVs out again, because he's. . ."

"Singer, if you yank at those wires any more I'm letting them strap you to this bed." Jody steps around the boys, and pushes Bobby back down onto the bed gently, immediately taking charge of the debate. "You aren't going anywhere."

"Stop mollycoddling me, Jody. I ain't endangering anyone else tonight." Bobby's voice is stronger, and he is attempting to sit up. Castiel smiles faintly at the obvious improvement, and lowers himself wearily into the visitor's seat once more. He does not feel compelled to engage in this argument with Bobby: the others have it well in hand.

Dean looks suspiciously from the exhausted but happy angel to the agitated hunter, and frowns, eventually speaking up and interrupting Jody, Bobby and Sam.

"What am I missing here?" He doesn't actually _need_ an answer provided to him. Everything clicks at once: Cas hadn't just_ collapsed_ after the ghoul attack. There was no _injury_ that had caused the problems. He hurt himself beforehand. "Did you. . . goddamnit, Cas, I didn't leave you here so you could try to _kill yourself_."

"No, you ditched him here so we could _babysit_ each other." Bobby interjects angrily, and for a moment it seems Cas is going to question the assertion. He was left here to guard Bobby, not for Bobby to watch over _him _. . . but he's watching Dean's face and he catches the truth of the assertion. Dean had expected that watching over Bobby would tuck Cas away safely from himself, as well. It shouldn't sting as much as it does. He looks away as Bobby continues. "Man stopped two ghouls and yeah, he tried to play with the old mojo, but you got a problem with that you got a problem with me, too, boy. 'Cause I was along for that ride."

"Jody killed one of the ghouls. I just _saw_ them." Castiel corrects, but his voice is stilted, toneless, hurt that what he thought was an act of trust was just the opposite. "And you consented, but it was my plan, Bobby, my idea. The blame. . ."

"Feathers, I was looking at skin grafts, infection, and damn near cooked lungs. I still ain't gonna be winning any beauty contests, and I'm gonna be adding brail to the languages I gotta pick up, but I'm _healing_, and if you keep talking about _blame_ I'm gonna test out just how quickly that healing's going by thumping you upside your head."

"I wouldn't advise that. . ." Cas mutters, which earns him a glare from Dean. When the eldest Winchester opens his mouth to tear apart that comment, Cas shakes his head slightly, straightening in place, wide eyes silently asking him to let it drop. They will discuss this, eventually. But not in front of his entire family. "Did you find anything when you went to Bobby's . . .?"

He's asking as a redirection, desperately and transparently attempting to change topics and put them back on track. Cas half expects one of them to point out the clumsy conversational tactic, as they always seem to. He does not expect Sam's gaze sliding to his brother and then away. Or for Dean's expression to shut down completely.

"We found out about the ghouls. Asmodeus is paying off the monsters, not just stirring them up to start problems for normal people and push the Apocalypse plan. She's got the ghouls entirely in their corner now. She's _giving_ them all the cities they destroy. She started with Salt Lake, had them eat the Hunters that were there. They get the memories of the people they eat, get to parade around as them." Dragging a hand down his face, Dean leans against the wall beside Cas's chair, and addresses Bobby and Jody. "We're gonna have to start adding a mirror test to the salt, silver and iron routine. 'Cause our wards don't do crap against them, salt lines don't work, and the anti-possession tat won't keep them from eating you."

"Damnit." Jody curses quietly, and Bobby agrees, settling heavily back against the thin hospital-bed pillow behind him.

"We gotta get word out. You hit the websites yet, Sam, let them know?"

"No. I. . . uh. I wasn't involved in getting the information. I'll get on the forums, make sure word gets out. The Mormons knew a _lot_ of the Hunter community. They'll be coming right after us."

The hesitations, the looks, Dean's knowledge, Sam's lack of it. Castiel is frowning, looking back and forth between the two hunters, and he's spent every day with these brothers for months, now, and known them for years. This is abnormal behavior, and it concerns him. "How did you find this out?"

"Demon." Dean answers, before Sam can. "They left a demon to keep an eye out on Bobby's. We got the drop on it."

A demon would not have offered the information willingly. Realization settles in, and Cas unfolds himself from the chair, pushing himself to his feet carefully to put himself in front of Dean. "You resorted to torture, to get information from it."

"I did what I had to do."

This is a conversation Dean would very much prefer not to have in front of Jody or Bobby. Clearing his throat, he glances at them, and Cas touches his fingertips to Dean's cheek, pulling his attention back. There's no anger in Cas's eyes, or disgust, or even the uneasiness he saw in Sam. This is something about Dean that Castiel _knows_, better than anyone. He had begun considering disobedience, when Heaven tried to use Dean for torture. He'd been demoted for voicing discontent with sending Dean in to torture Alistair. And he'd _been_ in Dean's Hell. He knew the desperation that had driven Dean to use those talents again, in the rare times he did.

And Castiel knows about 2014, heard it all from Dean. He knows what Dean became, there, and he knows what _he_ became. It's Dean who has pulled Cas back from that, encouraged him to stop with the drugs, made him _care_. Cas's hand is warm against his face as he cups Dean's cheek without pulling away, and he waits until Dean's attention is solely on him, blue eyes fixed on green. The fallen angel is exhausted, unsteady, and his head is splitting, but there's strength in his voice. He _needs_ Dean to hear this, if they are still trying to change that future. He needs to say what that future Castiel apparently never did, and return the favor Dean has done him.

"Dean, I did not pull you from Hell so that you could inflict your Hell upon yourself here."

There's a long moment of silence, Cas unblinking as he watches Dean watch him.

"C'mere." Dean finally mumbles, and his arm falls across Cas's back, hauling the fallen angel against him into a hug that Cas leans into heavily, letting Dean brace him upright as he turns his face into the curve of Dean's neck, closing his eyes. The past forty eight hours has put so much strain on _them_, that Cas lets the comfort sink bone-deep, trying to offer it in return.

Across the room, Bobby holds a hand blindly out in Sam's direction, swatting the young hunter accidentally on the leg and wagging his bandaged fingers. Sam blinks, looking away from his brother and down at Bobby. "What. . . ?"

"I ain't trying to hold your hand, boy. You owe me fifty dollars. _That_. . ." He flicks his hand faintly in the direction of Cas and Dean and their overheard conversation. ". . . That's _married._"

"No! No that's just them being. . . _them_." Bobby's joke and Sam's indignant denial breaks the tension in the room, and Jody chortles.

"They're both wearing rings, Bobby." She offers, looking down at the blind hunter as she perches lightly on the edge of his bed, shifting her duty belt to keep it from digging into either of them. "And he signed hospital papers as Castiel Winchester."

Raising his head, Cas turns his gaze to them, frowning slightly, suddenly concerned he has done wrong. "It had a space for last name in the required information portion. . . " He had gotten _that_ far, and then given up and handed it back mostly blank in frustration once it began asking information about insurance, addresses, employers and the like. It had taken Jody's interference to get him seen at all.

Sam extends a hand at them, looking at Jody. "See? Not married. There wasn't a wedding, it doesn't count."

"It counts." Bobby snorts, and Jody nods her agreement, earning her a suspicious look from Dean as Cas settles against the wall next to him, letting the wall and Dean's shoulder prop him upright. With a wry smile, she shrugs. "What? Bobby's a gossip. There was a bet going on. You're damn right I'm in on it."

". . . Is there _anyone _who isn't betting on my personal life?" Looking to Cas doesn't get him much sympathy: the angel is genuinely unconcerned about the betting, and seems to be forcing his eyes to stay open. He never even got the coffee he had gone for. Sam notices too, and clears his throat.

"Jody, we've gotta get out of here for a bit. I know you were talking about your place, do you want to lead the way or. . .?"

Unclipping her keys from the side of her belt, she separates one out and tosses it to Sam. "You got the address. Feed the dog, don't walk mud in, and try not to stab any of my neighbors. I've got someone bringing me a change of clothes from the station, and I'm bunking here tonight. I've got paperwork to do for the mess today, and someone's gotta an eye on Bobby." And with that, she settles herself into the visitor's chair Castiel abandoned, putting her feet up on Bobby's bed.

"Are you two. . .?" Dean's aborted question is met with a bland expression from Jody, and Bobby coughs quietly. And no. He really shouldn't ask. He _wants_ to ask, but he's not immune to the Mom Effect either. Bobby speaks into the awkward moment, and there's a faint thread of humor in his voice.

"Preacher here owes me a favor, you know, and he got his fair share of the hex bags. If you want to make Sam quit his bitchin', that is. . ."


	9. Chapter 9

_**Author's Note:**__ Wow, it's been a while since I've talked to you guys, my lovely readers. Hello! We're on an emotional roller-coaster this story, and this chapter and the next are going to be some of the high points of it. It was going rather long, so we're splitting this day into two parts: you'll see why in just a moment! I really hope you enjoy, and meanwhile. . . I want to thank all of you who've just caught up, everyone who's been with me all the while, and especially everyone who has left such lovely encouraging reviews. Thanks again to Mrstserc, who has been so helpful in co-authoring the other stories, and is beta-ing this for me, and telling me not to be so stingy with the sweetness. She still, after all these stories together, thinks I'm mean. We'll all be taking the plunge together after this day, though, so please be ready! Meanwhile, if you've got things you'd like to see before this series is over, drop me a review or tweet me ExorcisingEmily - Love to you all!_

...

"So, _do_ you wanna get married today?"

The mid-morning sun is shining into the window of Jody's guest room, golden and warm, and Dean has been awake for a while now, comfortably sprawled across the bed (a _real bed)_ while an angel does his best attempt to glue himself to Dean's side. He'd feel a little more sympathy for Cas being cold if it weren't for the fact that he threw the covers off them both at some point in the night. Again.

Cas nuzzles into Dean's chest further, nosing the amulet out of his way, and clings tighter. Dean has almost given up on getting an answer when Cas shifts and one blue eye cracks open, squints at him blearily, then closes again.

"Only if there's coffee involved."

. . .

"Any word from the hospital yet?" Dean meanders into Jody's kitchen to find his brother sprawled on the floor, a German Shepherd licking at his face, his hands buried into the thick fur ruff of the dog. Hrmphing, Dean steps warily around the mess of human and canine, and shakes his head as he reaches for the coffee pot. "Okay, I like her better than the last bitch you were with, but you gotta do that in the kitchen?"

"Very funny." Sam says, in a tone that indicates anything but, and he pats the dog a few times before rolling to his feet and shooting his brother a look. "Speaking of interspecies relationships, how's your boyfriend?"

"Comatose." Holding up a mug of coffee, Dean doesn't have to explain further. He stops part way out of the kitchen, and eyes the sigils painstakingly carved into the frame of the back door, and turns to look around the kitchen again. Setting the coffee mugs down, he shamelessly begins digging through Jody's cabinets, until he finds what he's looking for. Triumphantly, he holds up a bottle of rotgut whiskey indicatively for his brother.

"Little early, don't you think?"

"No way in hell Jody drinks this. This is _Bobby's_. I _knew_ it. That old dog. . ." Sam settles into a chair at the kitchen table, and after a moment Dean takes in his complete lack of surprise while Sam tugs the newspaper out of the plastic. "What, you knew?"

"There were books in Jody's room. And unless she took up reading ancient Germanic grimmoires . . . I slept on the couch."

"Good call, man." And maybe it's because Sam was so smug at having figured it out first, and maybe it's because Dean's convinced he's damned funny, but he waits until he's almost out of the kitchen before calling back to his brother. "Gonna go see if I can rouse Cas with coffee, or else there's no chance we're getting hitched today."

The newspaper hits the kitchen table hard, and Sam bangs his knee trying to clear his chair, too late to drag his brother back as he disappears into the guest room.

"Wait, dude, seriously?!" He calls from the hall, and Dean smirks as he sets their coffees down on the nightstand and slips back into bed with Cas, who immediately manages to turn him into a pillow again, boneless and exhausted. He hums contentedly when Dean cards fingers through his hair, pressing a kiss to the top of Cas's head and trying not to think about CAT scans or anything beyond the fact that Cas is alive and happy, and trying not to consider the world outside of the comfortable bedroom that smells of lemon Pledge and fabric softener.

They'll get around when Cas is good and ready to.

. . .

"Hello."

Sam has worked himself into a frenzy by the time Cas trudges out of the room for his second cup of coffee, pausing to squint at the dog and formally offer his hand to be sniffed, awaiting its judgment on his presence in the house. Dean rolls his eyes as he slips past them carefully, plucking the coffee mug out of Cas's hand. "It's a dog, Cas, not the friggin' Pope."

"There is no Pope currently." Cas rumbles, his voice grave, but he finishes the introduction with a brief scratch behind the dog's ear, a learned gesture picked up from television and movies, done with the curiosity of a social experiment. "And this is the dog's house we are guests in. It's only polite."

". . . No, cornflower's perfect. Yeah, it's pretty informal. How quickly can you have them ready?" Sam scratches a note down for himself on the to-do list from Jody's kitchen counter, without looking away from the computer screen in front of him, the phone tucked against his ear. "Yeah, that's great. Okay. Thank you, I'll see you then."

Walking past Sam, Dean stops and peers over his brother's shoulder at the computer and snorts at what he finds. "How many tabs you got open there, Sam? You planning a wedding or a hunt?"

Sam waves him off, already switching tabs again and punching numbers into the phone. Whoever he's calling picks up immediately. "I got flowers taken care of, any word from. . .? He will? Awesome. Is Bobby still trying to get out of. . ." Sighing, Sam switches the phone to his other shoulder and laughs. "Morning, Bobby. Yeah, yeah, you're getting into it too, I could hear you in the background. No, they _just_ woke up." Sam shoots a beady-eyed look at Cas, who pulls out the chair opposite him and turns the to-do list to look at it incredulously. "Yeah, he's looking lots better."

Dean waves at the phone, but Sam ignores him. Pouring Cas another cup of coffee, he sets it down on the table for the fallen angel and steals the phone from by his brother's ear, ignoring the indignant sputter. "Since the bitch won't say it _for_ me: morning, Bobby, how're you feeling. . . Well, hey now. It was _your_ idea, I just figured you could call your preacher friend and we'd meet at your hospital room and get this over with. . ."

Cas is staring at the list with an intimidated, increasingly nervous expression. "Are weddings usually this . . . _involved?_"

"Seriously, Cas? You guys are giving me a _day_. Usually these take months, sometimes even _years_ to pull together, and I got 'hey, we're getting married today, see you in a few hours' out of Dean this morning." Despite the grumbling, Sam is grinning at his computer screen, fingers flying over the keys, and he snaps his fingers at his brother, demanding the phone back and being ignored.

". . . No, I've had a dress clipped out of a magazine and playlists and menus written out and stashed in my 'Dream Wedding Book' for years now, Bobby. . . of _course _that's frikkin' enough. No, it's you and Sam that're so invested in my . . . You're what? Has the doc cleared you for that? We can just come _there_ man, it's fine really. . ."

Sam pushes himself out of the chair, and snatches the phone away from his brother, who rolls his eyes, gives up, and cracks the fridge open to forage for food.

"I'm back. Yeah, I agree, he's a dumbass." Dean flicks his brother off without turning. "We're gonna need to fake some documents to get a few things, but I figure there's no way to make this actually completely legit, what with the laws here, Cas not existing on paper, and Dean being legally dead."

"Making dead look sexy since 2005." Dean smirks, and grabs a carton of eggs and ham from the fridge, holding them up questioningly at Cas, who nods, shooting a confused and concerned look at Dean.

"You died in 2008." He says, slowly and clearly, as if he has to remind Dean of this fact. He _knows_ that he does not misremember, considering the circumstances. "Several times, actually, thanks to my brother. You also died twice in 2010. And then Storm Lake. I was unaware that you had died in 2005."

"Shifter." Dean explains succinctly, and Cas makes a quiet noise of understanding, looking faintly relieved. "Couple of times beyond that, though, I got 'chatting with a Reaper' close. Not sure that counts. And you don't get to judge me on the death count. Either of you." Dean gestures between his brother and his angel with a fork.

Sam is staring at Dean as if he's had an epiphany, still with the phone pressed to his ear. "Hey, Bobby. You and Jody gotta help me out. I just thought of something."

"This'll be good." Dean mutters, scrambling the eggs in a bowl rapidly.

"We're gonna need to find some new vows. 'Til death do we part' means we'll have to hold a wedding every other frikkin' year at this rate."

Sam ends up splattered in raw egg, and in the ensuing friendly wrestling match Castiel retrieves the phone and settles comfortably back at the table, calmly narrating the chaos to a laughing Bobby.

. . .

Sometimes, an innocuous question has unexpected consequences. Dean serves up breakfast to a still rapidly planning Sam, and Cas watches the younger Winchester brother in concern and fascination, considering his words. Dean has managed to maintain an air of supreme unconcern (it wasn't _his_ fault that his brother managed to complicate his very simple plan), but Castiel can't help but be effected by the increasingly manic behavior of Sam Winchester, whose hair has now clumped and stiffened into strange points by the egg, making him look half-mad.

Cas chews his eggs thoughtfully, swallowing as Dean finally takes a seat next to him at the table, their chairs close enough that their shoulders brush. Setting his fork down, Cas clears his throat and pulls Sam's gaze up from the computer, hazel eyes that are warm and happy, and he realizes suddenly that he is glad to be doing this if it brings all of his human family such joy.

"I was unaware that there would be so much involved in this, Sam, and I am sorry to ask you to accomplish it so quickly. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Oh, God, now you've done it." Dean mutters, but a glint has alighted in Sam's eyes at the offer, and he drags the to-do list back in front of him, tearing off the front page and grabbing his pen again.

"Yeah. I figure this'll come together around dinnertime, so we've got a lot to get done before then. If you can get Dean around, you both need a haircut. . . you especially. . . and I figure we're doing this in the FBI suits but you should get matching ties. Blue. And I've got a florist putting together boutonnieres and you can pick them up for me on the way back. We need. . ."

"Geeze, Samantha, you put enough planning into this all for us yet, or do you still have more in the Barbie Dream Wedding book you gotta work through . . .?" Dean mutters, a good-natured gripe, and Sam points his pen at Dean, fixing a stare on his elder brother.

"No. Nu-uh. Listen up, _Buttercup,_ you don't get to pull that 'Samantha' shit today of all days. I have three tabs open on this computer about same-sex marriages and relationships and not a _one _of them is for me. The day you're marrying a guy is _not_ a day you get to make jokes about me being 'gay,' you got that?"

"I didn't say gay. I implied_ effeminate_. We. . ." he gestures with his butter knife, waggling it to indicate Cas and himself. "Are not effeminate. We're badass. And I am _not _the friggin' _princess_, I told you that when we were watching the movie. Back me up here, Cas."

Castiel has his head tilted to the side, reading the to-do list upside-down, fork paused halfway between his plate and his mouth. "'As you wish.'" He supplies in a deadpan, with a faint quirk to the corner of his lips, and Sam guffaws heartily as Dean splutters. "He wants us to pick out the food, Dean." he offers, as if providing a compromise.

. . .

Plans to send Cas out for things are kyboshed quickly, with a phone call from Jody. The news reels of have now added footage from a shaky phone camera of Castiel, in the height of his madness, casually wiping out the KKK, supremely unconcerned in a way only God could be. Asmodeus, conversely, looks directly into a camera in China and smiles, beatific and sweet, before disappearing from the scene of carnage: she is systematically devastating the ruling structures of the world, casting the globe into chaos, and she wants the world to _see_.

Sam burns the newspaper in the fireplace and turns off the television before Cas and Dean are out of their shower, hiding the remote.

This somehow culminates in Dean being guilted into doing the running around for them.

Cas settles cross-legged on the floor in front of Jody's stereo, Sam being unwilling to give Cas the computer and risk him poking into the bookmarked news sites. Once Dean is gone, Cas seems somehow to fade in his absence, each passing moment leaving him more solemn as he presses the buttons, an empty notepad on his knee prepared to record songs he thought should be in their wedding.

It seems like a generally fruitless task to put Castiel on, but Sam is busy and it gives him the appearance of doing something helpful. Jody's music is different than Dean's. . . Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles and Bonnie Raitt, mixed with softer modern music more suited to Sam's taste than Dean's, like Mumford and Sons and Adele. Cas idly picks bands whose names he vaguely recognizes from their respective music collections: Dean's tapes and Sam's playlists, and stares blankly at the spinning CDs as time passes.

Sam finds his gaze drawn up from the computer screen and half-scribbled notes on vows to Cas at the start of familiar strains, and he pushes himself to his feet quietly after a moment, crouching and resting a hand on Cas's shoulder, speaking gently over the sounds of exuberant banjos. "Cas, are you okay?"

"This is such a sad song, to be so lively." Cas murmurs, eyes closed. "I don't know if I like it or not. Grace and choice, Sam. Are we supposed to have both?" Intelligent blue eyes fix on Sam's face at once, lined with grief. "The change of plans means that things have gotten worse."

Keeping things from Castiel clearly wasn't going to work, only increasing his anxiety. Sam settles on the floor next to his friend, legs bent at the knee and he looks away rather than meet Cas's unnerving stare. He doesn't have to confirm it. "This is more than that, isn't it? I mean, Cas, you're getting married today. That's gotta make you happy."

"It does." Castiel confirms, and he closes his eyes again, listening to the music. "I know you are attempting to find vows for us to speak, but there are no words to adequately convey how much I love your brother or what I would give for him. He knows it already. I just hope. . . if something happens to me, this doesn't make things worse for him. He carries enough: I don't want to make things harder for him."

_And I know my weakness, know my voice, and I believe in grace and choice. And I know perhaps my heart is fast, but I'll be born without a mask. . ._

Sam reaches over, pressing the stop button on the CD player, and Cas can't lie to him and he knows it. He's already given it away, and Sam's heart breaks for both of his brothers: Dean, who's getting married as a sign of _hope_ that they can fix things, and Castiel who is giving this human custom to Dean and claiming for himself the only thing he's wanted out of life, believing his time is numbered.

Wrapping an arm around Cas, he squeezes his shoulders lightly, before pushing himself to his feet and offering the other man a hand up. "Come on. We'll figure it out, Cas." He promises, eyes sincere and understanding. "But today. . . let's stick with instrumentals, okay?"

. . .

Jody and Bobby's arrival chases away thoughts of depression. Wheeling the elder hunter in, unwilling to allow himself to attempt to push his own wheelchair ("I got experience with that," "Yeah, but your hands weren't burned then, so shut up and let me do this.") she immediately commands Sam to go wash the egg out of his hair, and imperiously orders Castiel into a chair, getting clippers from the master bathroom.

Stiff and unmoving, Castiel stares straight ahead and holds his head exactly as she tilts it, while Bobby speaks to the minister over the phone, the dog's head resting lightly in his lap, its wet nose twitching and tail slowly fanning the air, big brown eyes fixed on the blind, injured hunter. Jody addresses Cas quietly, after a while, her voice low.

"You don't have to be nervous, you know. That boy loves you, anyone can see it."

Cas blinks, slowly, as if pulled from far away, and the corner of his mouth quirks up faintly. "I know. I am not nervous about that. I'm more afraid of you, actually. You are very. . ."

"I'd watch what you say, there, angel." She holds the clippers threateningly before Cas, eyes narrowing.

". . . Maternal." He supplies, blue eyes wide, and after a moment Jody seems mollified and resumes her work.

"Yeah, well, comes with the territory. You don't just _stop_ being a mom." Not even after losing her child. Even her line of work, it was her responsibility to keep her community in line, to care for each of them as much as it was to police them. "And Bobby talks about you boys all the time."

"I do not." Bobby interrupts himself and his own phonecall.

"Bobby Singer, mind your own conversations and keep out of mine." She cheerfully rebuts him, and steps behind Cas again, carefully taming his hair into some semblance of order. "I was nervous about meeting _you_, actually. I remember a bit from the day Bobby's burned down, when that demon was riding around in me, what you said. Scared the hell outta me."

_Do you think I will hesitate to make you suffer beyond all imagining if you harm these people? You fear these hunters? Crowley? Lucifer? Michael? I have tested myself against all of them and _I am still standing_. Fear _me_._

Cas raises one shoulder slightly and drops it, the barest hint of a shrug. "It was meant to. I'm sorry for holding a knife to your throat."

"Sorry for aiming a gun at you."

Cas lowers his eyes, and huffs his amusement quietly. "I think we can get through one day without threatening each other with violence."

"I dunno about that, Feathers. She has clippers. That counted." Bobby interrupts again. The bantering continues around him, washing over him, warm and comforting, and Castiel can't quite help but smile.


	10. Chapter 10

**_Author's Note: _**_A special gift for you all, same-day updates. Wedding Day, part two! I hope everyone enjoys (bit nervous, for obvious reasons, about this). Please do let me know, I love to hear from you!_

. . .

"You have now officially pissed away every bit of the fifty dollars this'll win you on _flowers."_ Dean announces himself with the jingling of keys, the rustling of plastic grocery bags, and sarcasm aimed at his brother.

Sam looks up from the sink, up to his elbows in soapy water, and unsuccessfully attempts to blow his wet hair out of his face. "Worth it. Get the bags on the table and go change, Jody's already got Cas cleaned up and Bobby's in there with him. I, apparently, need to clean up the mess _you_ made of the kitchen before the minister gets here."

"Get that tie and your ring in here before she starts climbing the walls." Bobby's voice rises from the living room, before Jody interrupts him, planting herself in the doorway to keep Dean out of the room.

"Nope. Not gonna happen. I've never done this with two grooms before, but there's tradition. It's only an hour or so 'til the minister gets here and you two can survive without seeing each other that long. Plus you'll muss him up, and I just finished with him."

"She gets bossy when she's nervous." Bobby earns a glare he can't see, but Dean's pretty sure without being able to look into the room at them that Bobby's amused with himself anyway. "What'd you get for dinner?"

"Fixings for burgers. And pie." Sam and Jody groan at the same time, both apparently giving him up as a lost cause, but Sam can't let it drop. "_Cake_. I specifically had _cake_ on the on the list."

"Well, _you _can have cake when _you_ get married. Which isn't gonna happen with you sitting behind the computer screen all the time and. . ."

"I'm sorry, am I supposed to use _your_ method for choosing spouses? No, _you're_ marrying the guy who brought us back. . ."

"I am not going to marry you, too, Sam." Castiel's voice intones solemnly from out of sight in the living room. "And I _like_ pie. And burgers."

"Cas is on my side." Dean snorts, grinning at his little brother, slapping him on the shoulder and then digging through the bags to pull out the ties, handing one to Jody as he slips his ring off and sets it on the countertop far from the sink. "We win. See?"

"I see you're going to be grilling in thirty degree weather in a suit." Sam snarks back, smug. "Go get your suit on, jerk."

"Finish the dishes, bitch. And don't lose my ring."

. . .

Dean is buttoning his collar in front of the mirror with a pensive look when his brother joins him, dragging a brush through his too-long hair to tame it back and looming over Dean's shoulder as he does. "You look good."

"I always look good." Dean answers, the reflexive retort quick to his lips as he glances at his brother in the mirror.

"You okay? You're not getting cold feet, are you?" Sam's concern is genuine, and he's standing by ready and willing to play the part of best man, to bolster his brother through this and keep his spirits up, as he's tried to do for Cas as well.

"My feet are toasty, Sammy." Sam's skepticism is apparent, and Dean waves it off, stepping back and settling onto the edge of the bed. "I'm okay, really. It's Cas I'm worried about."

"I get that." Sam replies quietly, and Dean's eyes jump to his brother's face searchingly. "Yeah, I figured it out. I don't know details, but. . ." He shrugs awkwardly and puts the brush down, leaning against the dresser. "I thought you guys'd tell me. Keep me in the loop."

"It's been a busy couple of days, between Bobby and the ghouls and this today." Dean drops his one sock-clad foot to the floor, and rakes his hand through his already-combed hair, making it stand at ends again. "He's been pulping his grapefruit when he does the mojo thing, we figure. The headaches. . . he's got an aneurysm. A couple of them, really, and it's bleeding into his brain."

Sam swears under his breath, and joins his brother on the edge of the bed, neither of them looking at each other. "What're we gonna do?" He asks after a few minutes, because they're Winchesters, and they never accept any setback like this laying down. It makes Dean's lips twitch wryly, how quickly and instinctively Sam's on his side.

"I figure we start with Kansas. We've gotta check it out anyway, and if Cas thinks it might be a frequency of angel radio. . ."

"Could be a trap, too. And even if it is angels, they probably won't be friendly towards him." Sam points out reasonably, but they both have already mentally accepted the risk. After a moment, Dean resumes putting his socks and shoes on, and Sam buttons his cuffs, before bumping against his brother's shoulder, speaking into the silence between them again. "Proud of you, you know."

For just a moment, Dean appears comically surprised at the sudden change of conversation, and then he hides it behind sarcasm and a lazy roll of his shoulders, settling his suit jacket on. "Don't know why you would be. World's still ending, things are still screwed up, and Cas is still. . ." He shrugs, and pushes himself to his feet. Sam follows him immediately, not letting him escape that easily.

"Maybe because none of that's your fault, Dean? I mean, you're still trying to fix it, and we're doing what we can. . ."

"Which isn't much."

". . . and you haven't given up. I mean . . . this is the most optimistic thing I've_ ever_ seen you do. And I _am_ proud of you. God, everything you had to get through to be here. . ." Dean had traversed through so much physical and emotional crap to reach this point, and Sam knew for damned sure that his big brother would try and do whatever it took to _keep _what he was building, their little dysfunctional family.

Dean seems on the verge of saying something serious, of responding to Sam genuinely, but the doorbell rings and they know the minister has arrived. Instead, he points at his brother, eyes narrowing.

"Listen up, Sammy. Don't you start this now. I am _not_ having you crying at my wedding."

. . .

The minister is staring at Castiel with a look of shock, and Cas's spirits fall again as he shifts in place, lowering his hand to his side again without the man returning his offered handshake. Jody has frantically darted away to retrieve the camera she uses for crime scenes, a last-minute addition to the plans, and while Bobby cannot see the stilted interaction he picks up on the silence and shifts in his wheelchair gingerly. Stubbornly insisting on his own FBI suit has left him winded, sore and exhausted and perhaps more cantankerous than usual. "Ed Cooper, if you stand in the doorway gawping at Cas, Jody is going to skin you alive for letting all the heat out."

The sheriff's fearsome reputation within the town and Bobby's not-so-gentle reminder spurs the man into motion. He steps inside, closing the door behind him, and Castiel takes a respectful step back, allowing him distance and not forcing his presence on the pastor.

"You're _him_. I. . . Bobby, you said same-sex, but I thought you were kidding about who. . ."

"Well, I wasn't." Bobby remarks shortly, and gestures vaguely, bringing Castiel to his side, where he takes the push-bars of the wheelchair, eyes downcast. "If you got a problem with Castiel, you leave now. Because I ain't having you ruin my boy's day by proving you're an addlepated idiot who listens to the goddamn propagandists over your own friends."

"We got a problem here?" Sam Winchester fills the doorway into the front hall, bracketing Cas between Bobby and a familiar Winchester presence. Letting his breath out in a low exhalation, Cas glances at the younger man, shaking his head slightly, warning him back. He doesn't want anyone threatened on his behalf. He _deserves _this reaction from men of faith.

"Sam, please take Bobby back into the living room, and tell Dean I will be right there? Pastor Cooper, I mean you no harm. Can we talk? Please?" Cas gestures fleetingly at the front door and, brown eyes wide and uncertain, the pastor glances at his blinded old friend and the young hunter behind him before opening the door and stepping out to the front porch. Cas follows him quietly, hands loose at his sides. The cold is biting, even edging as they are into spring, and snow melt drips incessantly into the empty, out-of-season flower beds edging Jody's front porch, where it will inevitably freeze once more overnight. There is a long moment where Cas is considering what to say, before the pastor finds his courage and asks outright.

"You're God."

Cas winces, and shakes his head slightly. "No. I'm an angel of the Lord, but I am not Him. I was lost, for a while, but I have been trying to redeem myself in my Father's eyes since then. This family, they've accepted me. When I stumbled, they picked me up again and put me on this path." Cas rubs the back of his neck and takes a seat on Jody's front porch swing, making himself smaller, less intimidating, keeping him from looming over the short, stout minister in his winter coat over his church vestments.

"And you're marrying one of them." There's a sense of shocked disbelief to his words, as if the pastor is still trying to work out the facts of this for himself, stunned into short declarations.

"I fell." Cas responds simply. "And I fell in love. It's a long story, and not always a pleasant one, but I know who and what I am now." Bracing an elbow on the armrest of the swing, Cas rubs his temple, thumb pressing slow circles into the thin skin there, and he continues after a moment. "You're Methodist, I see. You believe in the concept of free will, the idea that man's choices dictate his fate, and that nothing is predestined?" The pastor nods, once, and slowly takes a seat opposite Cas on a battered wicker chair. This is progress, and Cas continues in quiet words. "So do I. Recently, free will and a strict interpretation of my Father's word, as it is laid out in the Bible, came into conflict. These men, they believed that humanity deserved to be saved, that the Apocalypse could not come to pass. They made me believe it too. And they stopped it."

"_We_ stopped it. You helped." Dean closes the door behind him just as silently as he opened it, and Cas breathes easier with him present, closing his eyes and keeping himself from leaning into Dean as he takes the space next to Cas on the swing. Dean is trying to come to his rescue: Cas may never be fully comfortable with accepting his help in a conflict, but in conversation he is frequently at a loss. "We wouldn't have been able to do it without you, so don't try giving us all the credit. The rest of it's where the story gets complicated." And Dean wasn't letting Cas get into it. Not today.

The pastor doesn't hesitate to shake Dean's hand, Cas notices, when Dean extends it and offers his name. "Dean Winchester. Bobby's told me a bit about you. You've been getting the protection bags we've been sending back here, right, using the sigils?" Somehow, he manages to include Cas into that statement, making it clear that Castiel had played a part in protecting his flock, and Dean is subtle in a way that Castiel never has managed. "We've been all over the US, haven't seen a city half as in-the-know as Sioux Falls before. Don't know how you guys do it."

"Jody, mostly. Jody, and Bobby, myself, the mayor, and the heads of the Lutheran and Catholic churches here have all been trying since the Witnesses to get the town ready. I haven't managed to affect much change outside of the city limits, yet, but we've been working on it."

"It's impressive as hell. You've saved a lot of lives." Dean casually throws an arm across the back of the swing, along Cas's shoulders, and smiles: charming and unassuming and _beautiful_. Cas tries to keep himself from looking, to accede to Jody's traditionalist thoughts on seeing each other before the wedding, but he can't help but notice the way Dean's hair is burnished bronze in the evening sun, or the way the vibrant tie and splash of colorful flowers at his lapel, blue with sprays of white and green, changes the commonplace suit into something dashing and formal. Dean notices him staring: the smile warms, becomes more genuine, and he glances at Cas out of the corner of his eye and then winks cheekily.

"So you've known Bobby a long time, he tells me. Us too. Well, me and my brother. He practically raised us. . ."

Dean manages in ten minutes of polite conversation what Cas would have struggled for in an hour of awkward explanations and theological discussion, bringing the pastor back inside the house as they chat like old friends. Cas catches Dean's hand as they slip back inside, squeezing it gently in thanks.

. . .

The minister glances around at the meager gathering within the house as Jody takes his coat, and frowns faintly as he does. "Are we waiting for anyone else?"

"This is all the family I've got or need." Dean answers as he moves past him into the room, Cas following in Dean's wake. When the preacher's eyes fall on Castiel, as if he's suddenly nervous he's going to be inundated with angels, Cas shakes his head slightly, his voice quiet. "I have no one." Even before Heaven closed its doors, he had been disowned by everyone who counted, told not to pray for help, not to call attention to himself or risk being killed for releasing Asmodeus and Ba'el, and for his part in restarting the apocalypse. He has no right to claim them as family, after everything he has done.

Lowering her camera, Jody swallows heavily and blinks back sudden, hot tears at the matter-of-fact admission. She knows loneliness. Jody has lost her son twice, her husband, her parents, friends and family she could not protect. . . she moves to position herself at Cas's side in front of the fireplace instinctively. "I'll stand for him. If that's alright with you. . ."

They have _all_ suffered losses. They've all formed family from friendships, and Cas is not even the newest interloper in the small group in the room, and possibly not the only one feeling slightly out of place. With a slow, hesitant smile, Cas nods slightly and Jody beams at him, dashing a hand across her eyes and moving to fix his boutonniere into place. "Thank you." he adds, and Dean casts a newly appraising look at Jody, before offering her his grin.

"Damn fine woman you've got there, Bobby, did I mention?" Dean teases, tilting to look past Sam at Bobby, who . . . hell, Dean knows that face, even with the bandages across his mentor's missing eyes. He's seen it more than once during Spanish soaps, as they both pretended not to notice the other letting their 'stories' get to them. The wedding hasn't even started and half the room's already weepy.

"I'm not 'his woman.' If anything, he's a kept man." Jody quips lightly, and she raises the camera and snaps another picture of the grooms without moving from her place, catching them at an angle, lit by the sun through the windows and the fire crackling merrily behind them.

"Any time you wanna get started, I think we're ready then." Sam feels like they've managed to navigate landmines, the potential for this going terribly wrong and leaving everyone a depressed mess is making him unaccountably nervous, and he starts to wonder if maybe they would have been better off going to Vegas and standing with an Elvis impersonator, as Dean had once threatened, or just leaving well enough alone and foregoing a wedding.

"Keep it short, Ed. We've all gotten our share of preachifying, and no one here stands much on ceremony." Bobby adds before the minister can open his mouth, and earns a wry chuckle from the others, including the minister.

"I'm wearing the 'holy bathrobes,' Bobby, so that's Pastor Cooper to you. But I'll try."

In the end, there's no music at all, and Castiel's tie is backwards beneath his suit jacket despite Jody's claims that she'd _just fixed it_, and there are awkward solemn moments leading up to it. Each of them brings their own tragedies to the table, too, thoughts of weddings with Karen Singer and Sean Mills, of engagement rings and Jess Moore, of family lost and estranged, old insecurities and new worries, but it's _them_ for all their flaws, and maybe Sam had been right about what they'd needed after all.

. . .

"We are gathered here today, in troubling times, to celebrate the ultimate expression of hope and love, humanity and faith. These men, Dean and Castiel, have come together from different worlds and separate lives, against all odds and in defiance of all obstacles, to build from this day forth a life together."

"Love is not an accident. It does not spring from nothing, it grows from friendship, and binds together two souls in unity." Cas shuffles slightly in place for the first time, as if prepared to argue whether he has a soul, and Dean reaches out and takes his hand, calling his attention away from the minister and back to him. Tilting his head slightly, he quirks a smile at Cas, and semantic arguments die away in favor of the truth of the message: in their case, semantics aside, perhaps more literally than others.

The minister's voice is rich and rolling, and with the small gathering he looks to each of them in turn as he speaks, and despite his hesitation before he then directs his words straight to Dean and Cas. "Love is built in trust, strengthened in time and undiminished in adversity, and it acts as a light even in the darkest times and a shield against doubt and fear. Dean, Castiel, as you prepare to take these vows, give careful thought and prayer, for as you make them you are pledging yourself to one another into eternity."

Dean turns slightly, glancing at Sam at his side, who smiles smugly. Apparently, the preacher had gotten the message about the 'til death do you part' after all. Covertly, Sam points a finger at the minister, and Dean has the sudden sneaking suspicion that his brother is _up to something_.

"I have been told that the grooms would like to express their own commitment in personal vows."

Son of a _bitch_. He'd been set up, payback for two apparently unsatisfying wordless proposals from a meddling, sadistic, pain in the ass little brother who had invested way too much attention into his relationship. Dean turns back to Cas, expecting to see a deer-in-the-headlights look from the fallen angel, and finding bright blue earnest eyes fixed on him instead as Castiel hesitates and then lets his breath out slowly, eyes dropping to Dean's lips as he finds words, his palms growing cold and clammy in nervousness, held in Dean's.

"Dean. . ." He had no idea how to begin: as he had explained before, there simply weren't _words. _"When I first saw you, I was struck by how brilliant a soul you are. You were a beacon that guided me through Perdition, and I have trusted that light to guide me again and again, through confusion and guilt and pain and loss. I've turned away from it in the past, and you still. . . you still found a way to guide me _home_. I have lived millions of years, and I thought I understood love, and humanity and. . . I knew _nothing_." Breathing out shakily, Castiel raises his eyes, meeting Dean's, and he shifts nervously, as if after everything they'd been through _this_ would be when Dean finally realized he deserved better. "I promise you, that I will always try to be worthy of your trust and your love, and of _you_."

It takes Sam nudging Dean to break the moment, and Dean's only aware that they've fallen into the staring thing again at that point as he turns slightly to skewer his brother with a look and hiss under his breath. "Quit jabbing me, I'm _thinking_. That's hard to follow."

Cas smiles, ducking his head, and squeezes Dean's hands comfortingly, suddenly relaxed. They _understand_ each other, and Cas knows now that Dean is still with him, that this is still _them_. With their linked hands, Dean nudges Cas's chin up, and offers him a crooked smile when their eyes meet again.

"Cas. You have seen me at my worst, broken and ruined, and you put me back together again and never turned away because of what you saw. You make me stronger, make me try to be a better man, because for some reason. . . you _see_ that in me. And it's taken. . . way too damned long for me to admit how much you mean to me. I let a lot of stupid things get in the way, and I don't. . . I'm not going to keep letting everything get between us. You're _it_ for me, Cas. _You're_ what I want, you're the happy ending I didn't think I could have. So. . . If you'll have me, I'd like to try and be yours, too."

This is _choice_, every word an affirmation of what they fight for, a direct counter to the accusations of Michael and a rebuttal to Lucifer's claims of predestination. The minister's words follow in a haze of 'I Dos' and symbolism of rings returned to their rightful places on their fingers, reaffirming what they'd already declared before. Cas is studying Dean's face, his attention drifted back to where it _should_ be, memorizing his hunter in that moment, his intent regard drawing a smile from Dean, and a casually quirked eyebrow.

Cas almost misses when the Minister blesses the union and releases them to each other, but he finds himself pulled back by the end. . . because giving away your heart and binding your soul is, as always, sealed with a kiss.


	11. Chapter 11

It's the Sunday paper that does it, in the end.

Unremarkable in its plastic wrappings, tossed onto the front porch to spare it from the patchy snow on the garden path, the newspaper waits for Castiel to find it mid-day when he finally rouses from the guest bedroom of Jody's home, as much as it can be called rousing when he has taken most of the bed with him, the blanket wrapped around his shoulders as he pads across the house to let the dog out dutifully. It was the one clear instruction they were given as Jody loaded Bobby back up and returned him to the hospital, and Sam jumped on the chance to take a shift at the hospital to free Jody to her other duties, and to leave his brother and the angel to their wedding night. Taking care of the dog was the one and only expectation she had for her houseguests.

(Sam and Bobby had other comments about 'honeymooning,' but Dean told them to mind their own business or he'd give them details. While this was a blatant lie, it did have the effect of silencing them both and clearing them out of the house, and so Castiel didn't hold it against him.)

Allowing the dog time to finish, Cas shuffles onwards to the kitchen, thankful that Jody keeps the coffee canister on the counter, sparing him from searching for it. The scent of coffee brewing sparks his tired, aching brain into semi-consciousness and reminds him of his intended task that Dean had thoroughly distracted him from once everyone was gone.

Dean is huddled into the center of the bed hugging the thin sheet around himself, his face planted into Cas's abandoned pillow as it muffles his quiet snoring. Castiel sacrifices his blanket to tuck it around Dean, careful not to wake him. He ghosts a gentle kiss to the curve of Dean's cheek, pausing to take him in as he is; made young and vulnerable in sleep. Cas can't quite help the silent thanks to his Father for permitting him this, for creating the Righteous Man and allowing them to have these moments and this _love_. With Heaven closed to him, it is only God that can hear his prayers now. It's the first time in a very long time he has allowed himself to indulge any form of prayer, and it feels _right_ to do so.

(The newspaper waits on the porch for him, horrors on every page writ in words and grainy color photographs.)

He dresses in the bathroom in his most comfortable battered jeans and a flannel shirt he stole from Dean and has no intention of returning, its fabric washed and worn into softness, its blacks faded to soft grays. Padding back to the kitchen on bare feet, he drops his journal onto the table, stuffed overfull with mementos and scraps of memories, its pages written with facts, rituals, translations and everything millions of years of experience told him might be useful for others in the future. Opening the leather book before him, he tugs the pen from its loop and slips out the folded map from behind the cover, seeking out Sioux Falls. Already a sigil is here in his native Enochian, but he adds to it as he sips at his first cup of coffee, and leaves it spread across the table as he meanders to the living room and the untidy pile of photos that Jody had produced from a small printer, a little miracle of technology that had captured the face he'd memorized.

He steals his favorite image of them, a picture of Dean laughing with his arm slung around Castiel's shoulders, his head tilted in close to Cas's as they sat before their burgers and their pie at Jody's kitchen table, caught forever in a moment of genuine joy. Cas looks dumbstruck and awed in the photo, entranced by Dean's smile, and he had _felt_ it, too. So many times he'd sought Revelation from God, and it had been a man who had given him that peace and sense of purpose.

On his way past the front entry, he spots the newspaper on the porch and unlocks the door, reaching out to scoop the paper up and tuck it beneath his arm, closing the door as quickly as he can to stave off the cold. He finishes his trek to the kitchen with the paper under his arm, his coffee in hand, the photograph between his fingers. Letting the dog back in from the cold he shuffles his items to balance them as he heaps food into her bowl, earning him a lifelong friend with his unknowing generosity.

He drops the wrapped newspaper onto the chair next to his and turns his attention instead to the book.

Castiel had once told Dean, with a certain sort of sad acceptance, that he would never write of himself in the pages of his journal. That the most he could hope for was to be forgotten by history after his part in destroying the world, and with his journal leaving behind something that could help right what he had done. He had meant it when he said the words, and a large part of him still feels that way. Worrying his lip with his teeth, pen clicking against the ring on his hand as he considers his feelings on the matter, he stares at the picture for several moments before tracing a fingertip over Dean's face printed on its glossy surface.

Flipping over the image, he takes the pen to the back and neatly inks the date. It is safe, to date it. Unassuming.

The dog drops her head into his lap, her warm brown eyes huge and hopeful, and Castiel gives a short, staid puff of laughter despite himself at the fact that such a look is so familiar. Burying one hand into her fur, he scratches her behind the ears as her tail thumps against the table leg happily, considering the penned inscription. It is cowardice and he knows it, to want to fade out of memory after what he has done. And it's egotistical to believe that _he_ can tarnish Dean with his presence in the hunter's life, when after forty years in Hell he could still be such a brilliant light to the world. Cowardice, ego, underestimating Dean. . . these are flaws that brought him low, in the past. Mustering his resolve, Castiel presses the tip of his pen to the back of the image again, and writes carefully, deliberately inking himself into history again the way he _wants_ to be remembered.

_The wedding of Dean Winchester and the angel Castiel._

It is such a little thing, identifying himself to the world and leaving a visual representation of their bond, to be such an advancement in his human life. He tucks the image into his journal lovingly, a marker between the pages of pure fact and the blank pages waiting for him to fill them as he wishes. He doesn't know if he can explain the significance of this moment to Dean, but he will try later once his husband (just thinking the word makes him duck his head and smile to himself) wakes. Giving the dog one last pat, Cas pushes himself to his feet and refills his coffee mug.

He takes up the newspaper again on his way into Jody's living room, swinging by his side, held by the knot in its plastic sheath. The dog follows him, curling up on her bed in the corner with her head on her paws, her tail still twitching, happy for Castiel's silent company. The remote control is missing (still hidden wherever Sam had placed it to shelter them on their wedding day) and the only channel that comes up is Spanish language Soap Operas, so he lets the increasingly unlikely tragedies babble on at low volume as his mind translates the words flawlessly. Folding himself into Jody's couch, he draws the throw blanket there over his feet and then, finally, unwraps the paper.

The carefully constructed happiness that sheltered them breaks, soap-bubble fragile, with his first glance at the news of the world outside his paradise.

It is some time later that Dean drops onto the couch beside him, the journal and map in his hands and his coffee joining Cas's on the table, repeating a question that Castiel had missed twice already, laughter in his sleepy voice. "What's the word, Cas?"

He knows that Dean is asking about the map, joyful and still cocooned as Cas had been in their stolen moment, and it hurts him to take that from Dean. A word that had seemed so hopeful, so beautiful in its connotations of acceptance and belonging when he'd written it on his map, mocks him now in this colored ink and thin paper before him.

Closing his eyes, he folds the newspaper on his knee, showing the front cover of it to Dean, who grows still immediately. The printers have managed to capture the exact color of Claire Novak's eyes; the same brilliant cerulean shade that Castiel saw every time he looked in the mirror and that reflected out of every photograph Jody had taken and spread across the table.

Pain roughens his voice, guilt and grief render him hoarse as he answers Dean's question finally.

"Family. It says family, Dean."

. . .

"No, Sam." Castiel repeats firmly, looking up at the man who had gone from an abomination, a curiosity, to his brother and closest friend outside of Dean. He can see the intelligence and the pain in the wide eyed look that Sam offers him as compared to 'puppy eyes,' and it's far more difficult to resist. Despite that, he reaches a hand out, clasping Sam's shoulder briefly and then steps past him and down the featureless hospital hallway. It is difficult though to outpace a man who has you in height by nearly half a foot.

"Cas, I saw the charts. I talked to the doctor. . ."

He really should not have listed both Winchesters as his next of kin on his barely touched medical forms.

". . . And we can't ignore this, man. We could stay here for a while, get you checked out. Cas, I mean. . . it's not safe. It's putting pressure on your. . ."

"I do not know why both of you think you need to explain medical terminology to me. I understand the situation fully." Castiel sighs, and he stops again prior to reaching the door of Bobby's room where Dean stands outside watching the two of them with his arms folded, shoulder braced to the wall. "Sam, I don't question the doctor's competence. I have no doubts that by all appearances the damage I have done this body is dire. But cutting into my head, or drilling into my skull to relieve pressure, will only waste time that we do not have and may do nothing to help. I am functioning when he does not think I should be capable of it. I am still, despite it all, not _human_. We would be taking an unnecessary risk for potentially no gain, and losing ground on what is truly important. We should be fighting a _war._"

"'_Truly important'. . ?"_

"Sam." Dean interrupts his brother before he can give much more than a stubborn, mulish look, and he tips his head to the room behind them. "Come on. We're headed back to Jody's for the night so we don't have to find a place to hole up on the road, and Bobby wants a word before we go."

Castiel's gaze slides to Dean, his eyes intense and shoulders stiff, and Dean answers his posture in words and a challenging stare of his own. "We're headed out to Kansas first thing in the morning."

"We do not need to go to Kansas to summon Crowley or bait Asmodeus, Dean." Cas rumbles out, and Dean pushes off of the wall, opening the door for them.

"Change of plans."

"Dean. . . " There's a plea breathed into the name, a warning, chastisement for placing undue hope into a summons that was more likely a trap no matter how much Castiel himself would wish otherwise, and for putting the welfare of one fallen angel ahead of saving the world. Dean turns back to Cas and lets the door swing shut again, a finger raised as if he has to stop words that will never come and his voice drops into low, gruff, commanding tones.

"_No._ Look, Cas, you woke up this morning, read the news and now you feel like shit about being _happy_. I get that, you _know_ I get that. But you know what? Fuck that. We. . ." he gestures between them, and Castiel watches him sadly. "We're part of the world we're trying to save, and, goddamn it, I am _not_ losing you."

"Dean, it's you that we need. . ."

Not the Righteous Man crap, again. Gritting his teeth, Dean steps into Castiel's space, but their hands remain at their sides, and between the three of them they are a family portrait of stubbornness.

"And I need _you_. So we are going to fucking Kansas, and you're going to quit trying to Spock at us with this 'needs of the many' crap because I am not forgetting that we've got shit to do. But we're doing it while we're figuring out how the hell to fix you. You got me, Cas?"

It's been a while since Cas has given him the look of confusion at a pop culture reference, and how the hell had they missed Star Trek in teaching him about humanity? There is still so much he wants to watch Cas learn, so many things he wants Cas's off-kilter opinion on, and catching his face in his hands Dean presses a tender kiss to his forehead. "Just. . . shut up and get in the room, okay?"

Cas isn't sure when 'shut up' became a declaration of affection; perhaps it has been all along. How many times has he heard "Shut up, Bitch" or "Shut up, Cas" because Dean didn't have words otherwise? He understands this, better than they give him credit for: Sam is worried, and looking to science, to medicine, tucking Cas away for others to care for him while they look into other options. Dean is working on instinct, wing-and-a-prayer and the supernatural cure, and is completely unwilling to trust Cas's care to anyone else.

This is _love_.

It is also smothering, dismissing his assertions on his own health, because for all of their many admirable qualities (and how many years has he spent admiring them), the Winchesters are heavy handed in their decision making for others and for each other, always.

No one in the hall is under the delusion that the debate is actually over when Cas nods once, curtly. Dean's sigh gusts across his forehead and ruffles his hair, and then he steps back to open the door for them.

Unseen by Castiel as he strides into the room ahead of them, Sam and Dean exchange a look. After a moment, Sam nods in agreement.

. . .

The rest of his day passes with a Winchester guarding him. As if they had somehow arranged it without needing discussion, Dean or Sam would always be there at his elbow. Even when it would have made more sense for both of them to go into the store to stock up on supplies before they hit the road. Even when Cas was the only one that truly needed to stay out of sight.

Eyes hidden behind his aviator sunglasses protecting his identity and soothing his aching head, Castiel watches them watch him and frowns.

The past few days have been chaotic, an unsteady journey of emotions. Heaven abandoned them on Thursday, the war spilled over into the public and Castiel fell to pieces. They stole a moment of happiness Friday morning and then rushed to Bobby's side and fought ghouls and demons on Friday night. In the pre-dawn hours of Saturday morning, Dean had learned that Castiel was unwell, and then they were married by Saturday night.

The boys haven't left him alone since they found him in the bar, he is realizing. Not truly alone, not if Dean had been counting on Bobby to monitor him, to watch over him like a fledgling.

Is this worry, or is it mistrust? He suspects it is both, to some extent, whether conscious or not. Both motives concern him, and perhaps he has become somewhat contrary with his increased exposure to humanity because it has the opposite of the desired effect. One might argue the inevitability of that, and the influence there: after all, he had learned the concept of oppositional defiance from Dean Winchester early on, with the impatient understanding of "whatever I ask, you seem to do the opposite."

The more they watch him, now, the more Castiel feels the need to escape.

The midnight sky is the color of a bruise, city glow keeping the world from being truly dark, and Dean is finally asleep. Standing fully dressed at the window, Castiel realizes that he will miss this tidy little house, its soft sheets and feeling of family and comfort. Jody's casual combination of a police officer's practicality, a hunter's obsession, a mother's warmth and a regard for _home_ created a singularly welcoming environment that he has never experienced in a human life full of abandoned buildings and no-questions-asked motels.

The gibbous moon shines down on Bobby's battered truck parked at the curb outside, brought there by Jody during the day, and Castiel stares at it as his mind whirls. With the keys digging into his palm, pocketed from the kitchen, Cas listens to Sam's snores from the living room and Dean moving fitfully in the bed. Turning back from the window, he watches Dean sleep in the moonglow with his face buried into the pillows to block out the light, one arm flung across Cas's side of the bed as if seeking out his warmth. A large part of Castiel wants to climb back under the covers and feel that arm curl around him, dragging him closer, sheltering him against Dean's side.

It's a protective gesture on Dean's part. Instinctive and deeply ingrained. Castiel would know. He's been on the receiving end of that instinct many times, and yet has been chastised for his own. He _has_ to do this. It's his responsibility, beyond being recompense for the damage he has done the world, it is something he has to accomplish to feel at ease with _himself_.

He's at the bedroom door, his boots in one hand and keys in the other, when he's stopped cold.

"Married a day and already sneaking out the back door at night, huh, Cas?"

Dean's voice is clearer than it should be, kept low for Sam's sake in the living room, and Cas closes his eyes, hand on the doorframe and muscles locking, transforming him into stone. "When I stumbled over the dog in the kitchen, I jingled the keys."

"I was already awake."

Dean rolls over smoothly and sits up on the edge of the bed as he watches Castiel without standing, skin gilded silver and eyes reflective glints in the moonlight as Castiel turns to face him, letting his breath out slowly. "Why did you pretend to be asleep?"

"Because I wanted to see if you'd do it." Reaching out, Dean flicks the lamp switch and floods the room in light, and Castiel blinks owlishly, grimacing at the sudden change in illumination. "You think just because I'm one of the fucking goals on your bucket list that I can't tell you're just working your way down the things you want to do before you kick it? So, how suicidal are you? What was it tonight, go out and. . . "

"I am _not_ suicidal." Cas steps out of the door, closing it behind him gently to keep their argument from waking Sam. "And marrying you was not some. . . some entry on a _list. _I want to_ live, _Dean. Now more than ever. But I do not want to live a half-life of being kept out of everything for 'my own good,' and chasing the next possible miracle to save me. This, this is not what I am, it is not what I am _meant_ to be."

"You're not an angel any more, Cas." Cas cuts a hand through the air, chopping off Dean's words before he can continue, and even without heavenly mojo backing him his anger and frustration is a powerful, inhuman thing.

"I have told you before, I _do not need that reminder. _I am completely aware every moment of every day of what I am. I was not _pining_ for what I gave up. You continually forget what I still_ am_. Angel or not, I am a _soldier,_ Dean. There is a war to fight and I am a part of it. Beyond that, there is a _child _who is _my_ responsibility being used to murder, to destroy, and to tear the world apart to its foundations, being transformed into an abomination and having her entire future ripped away from her because of _me,_ and I would rather take the risk of losing my life than try to live with myself if I allow this to continue."

The silence drags between them, thick and oppressive. After a moment, Dean pushes himself to his feet and strides past Cas, grabbing his bag and tossing it onto the bed, pulling clothes on, plucking his gun from beneath his pillow and holstering it. Castiel watches in silence, expression carefully blank, until Dean turns back to him as he tucks Ruby's blade into place. "Stop staring and go wake up Sam, Cas. If we're gonna go and get ourselves killed trying to save Pollyanna, we're doing it together."


	12. Chapter 12

The high beams of the Impala wash out the entire scene before Dean as he rubs his hands together before the rattling air vents of his beloved car, working circulation back into his fingers and taking a moment to get his head together before things go down. Outside of the car, he watches as his brother throws another can of spray paint to Castiel, who catches it deftly before tossing his spent can into the pile in the corner, retracing old and damaged symbols on weather-beaten wood, refreshing traps and sigils that Bobby Singer had placed there long before.

Years before, in fact.

It's burned into his memory, crystal clear. He remembers sitting on the table Cas is balanced on now, waiting for a monster and being confronted instead with the most perplexing creature he'd ever encountered.

Satisfied with his work, Cas hops down from the table and surveys the sigils done in fluorescent orange traffic paint, procured from Jody's house, and exchanges a few unheard words with his little brother. Sam's teeth flash white in the headlights, his shoulders shaking in laughter, and Dean steps out of the car and looks in the wide-open doors of the barn, resting his arm along the top of the car and looking at the two men before him, an eyebrow raised. "Why do I get the feeling it's me you're laughing at?"

"Cas was telling me 'bout the night you two met here." Sam flashes Dean another grin, and it's probably a sign of how screwed up they are, that everything can seem funny right before they go and do something suicidal. They've had one too many last nights on Earth. "And how it's his fault none of the lights work now."

"I needed to make an impression." There's a faint, rueful quirk to Castiel's lips as he drags his trench coat back on now that he's done painting and won't inadvertently ruin the gift Dean had given him, and he shoves his hands deeply into the pockets to warm them, hunched into the coat. "I believe it worked."

"Yeah, yeah. You're very impressive. We done playing arts-and-crafts now?" Dean deflects, because if he dwells on that too long they're going to end up remembering just how well trying to trap an angel in this barn had gone last time. Stabbing and shooting Cas on first sight, the flare of light that shadowed wings onto the wall behind him, all of it only underscores that Cas doesn't _have_ that kind of mojo now. . . and Asmodeus does. Meanwhile, Cas is a master at traps, sigils and rituals, but Dean can't help but remember the first time Cas built up an 'unbreakable' trap for him, and Alistair broke it to kick their asses. Spray paint instead of chalk took care of the whole 'drip water on it' trick, but even Cas has slipped an angel trap before, and Asmodeus has all his memories.

They're fighting a creature with all of Cas's old powers, all of his memories, but without any of Cas's compunctions about outright killing them all.

Castiel's eyes seem to glow in the Impala's headlights, too-bright, unblinking despite the glare, and Dean knows he must just appear as a shadow on the other side of that light to Castiel, and yet he's meeting Dean's stare. "We're done. And this _will_ work, Dean."

"Says the guy who didn't even want us here." Dean reminds him, and Cas raises and drops his shoulders in a faint shrug, unfazed by the reminder.

"Yeah, but we're _Team_ Free Will." Sam interjects, and the guy _couldn't_ look more hopeful and earnest, head swiveling back and forth between them, perpetually trying to mend fences that didn't actually need it. "So we're doing this together."

Dean doesn't respond, ducking back into the car and snatching up the supplies he'd been pulling together. Handing off two old fashioned hurricanes lamp to Sam, he carries the bag to Cas, and as the fallen angel reaches to take it he snags him by the wrist, drags him in close, and kisses him. The move is abrupt, without warning and nearly violent in force, but Castiel fists his free hand into Dean's jacket, yanking him closer still without hesitation, kissing him like it's the main event.

"You know, still in the room." Sam grouses, and then sighs in exasperation when his words do nothing to separate them. He meanders the table, lights the lamp, perches on the edge with one foot still planted on the floor, and makes a show of checking his watch. Repeatedly. With annoyed sighs each time. "If you two wanted to make out, you could have let me have another hour's sleep before waking me up for this. I wouldn't have minded."

Sam is bitching just to be a bitch, and they all know it. Still, Cas breaks the kiss, breathing hard, and holds an admonishing finger up between himself and Dean. "_That_. . . was not a goodbye."

"Damn right it wasn't." Dean growls, and then holds up Cas's hex bag, snatched from his pocket without him noticing. "That was work. _I_'ve got my head in the game. You're the one forgetting steps."

"If you ever use that distraction method to pickpocket anyone else, Dean Winchester. . ."

"_Someone's_ jealous. And distractible."

". . . Why did I think hunting with a married couple was a good idea?"

Dean smirks and raises a middle finger at his brother without turning, considering it a small revenge for all the times his moose brother had interrupted in the past, and for Sam being the one who'd been plotting a damned shotgun wedding (literally—with shotguns) with Bobby for half a year.

"Because you cherish your brother's happiness, despite complaining about it recreationally." Castiel responds to Sam primly, and presses a quick, chaste kiss to the corner of Dean's mouth, not giving him the chance to return it. Stepping back, he drops the bag onto the table, pulling out a silver bowl and his supplies as he arranges them for his use. "Park the car, Dean. I'll wait until you're back to begin."

"Wouldn't it be easier to just keep the car here?" Sam pushes his hair back from his face, and accepts the journal from Castiel, familiar enough with it as a reference and written as it was for an audience, so that he flips to the correct page nearly as quickly as he would have John Winchester's familiar journal.

"Asmodeus has made a point of destroying places of particular significance to me, based upon my memories. Dean's car is the single most consistent environment I have experienced outside of Heaven. I would prefer it remain safe, and not to have to linger to repair it."

"She." Dean corrects, already opening the car door.

"I refuse to accept gender qualifications for inanimate objects."

"He's just jealous of our relationship, Baby." Dean pets his car and Cas raises his head, narrowing his eyes at Dean across the span of the barn.

"It's bad enough that you talk to the car. Please stop fondling it."

"That's a battle you've already lost, man." Sam snorts, and at this point Dean's not even sure which of them is trying to raise the spirits of the other. They're all in on it, giving the conversation an air of strained levity and grim humor.

Dean pulls the car away from the barn, preparing to park her in the weeds and tree line to keep their escape method safe and nearby, and Castiel immediately shucks off his coat again and his shirts, baring his torso to the freezing air and pulling a startled interjection from Sam. "What the fuck . . .?"

Paper thin cuts, shallow and precise: he does not wish to scar once again, and he has learned in his humanity now how inconvenient the many injuries he has collected can be during healing. The bite out of his shoulder is bad enough, he doesn't want to disable himself before the fight. He has very little time before Dean will return, and this is not something he wants him to witness.

In fact, it was part of why he had originally decided to do this alone. Even now, Sam wants to intervene nearly as much as Dean would. "Blood, Sam. My attempt to contact Claire in St. Louis failed, but I believe I know now what will work. It's the blood that made her a suitable vessel for Asmodeus, and gave Ba'el a tie to the bloodline as well. And through blood, I was tied to Asmodeus's grace."

"And you wanted Dean gone for this because. . .?" Sam's anger in defense of Dean, on his brother's behalf, is comforting to Castiel. He doesn't become defensive in response: rather, he keeps dragging the knife along the inside of his forearm, before switching hands and doing the same to the other arm. "Because I am recreating in miniature what was carved into my flesh in Utah to free Asmodeus and Ba'el. Considering his recent foray back into torture, I would rather not remind Dean of my hours with Meg and add to his nightmares. I have been very careful not to make reference to it or to indicate that the torture had any long-term psychological effect."

". . . You're trying to protect him." Sam drags a hand down his face but shifts posture, no longer looming and prepared to wrench the knife away from Castiel's hands.

"Of course. It's what we all try to offer each other." The knife point slips, leaving a deeper furrow than he intended as he works to steady it in his off hand, and Castiel blinks as Sam reaches out and catches his hand, taking the knife away. Before he can protest, remind Sam that he had agreed with the purpose, the younger Winchester stretches his arm out and focuses on his lacerated skin. "If you scar yourself up doing this, Dean'll never forgive me. Just sound out the ones you need and stop me if I start doing it wrong, or better yet, write them down. This'll be faster, so you can get your clothes back on before I get my ass kicked for this by Dean."

True to his words, Cas is shrugging his coat back into place when Dean rejoins them in the barn, blowing on his hands to warm them and nodding at the table. "We ready to start this show?"

Castiel answers by throwing a pinch of myrrh into the bowl before him, taking a last long look at Dean and Sam falling in around him, and he begins chanting, Enochian flowing smoothly, guttural and deep. The light flares from the bowl, bright and blinding, and before they have time to blink away the illumination her words reach them in a voice sweet and saccharine as honey.

"Hello, Castiel."

Clothed as she is in a pristine white dress, her feet bare, Claire Novak is the willowy, slender and innocent portrait of youthful beauty.  
Vibrant blue eyes, rounded cheeks and honey blonde hair, Asmodeus's intensity seems out of place on that face as she slings a hand out violently and slams both Winchesters to the floor, her eyes fixed on Castiel standing flat-footed and loose before her. Still chanting quietly, trusting in Sam and Dean's skill to keep them alive for now, his unblinking stare remains fixed on the creature who ripped his psyche apart.

"Did you like my gifts, brother?" Asmodeus asks, each step towards him making her skirts sway gently, with a ballerina's grace and form. "I see you're still playing with the humans. . ." Dean, rising to a knee with the Colt aimed at her head, slams hard into the wall of the barn, and she flicks her eyes towards him without stopping her slow approach, her voice dangerous.

"What gifts. . ." Dean gasps out, and Asmodeus tuts.

"Are you _speaking_ for him, now, too? My _gifts._ Poor, deluded Castiel believes himself a human, he has allowed you to _leash_ him. He was willing to follow you, like a _pet_, accepting whatever scraps you threw his way." She steps past Castiel to cup her hand to Dean's jaw, raising him up from the floor, watching Castiel out of the corner of her eyes as she does, her other hand fisted to keep the fallen angel in place. "I have ripped away those leashes, so that he can be as he was _intended_ again."

"Leave him alone." Castiel is drawing her attention now, his chanting complete, but Asmodeus ignores him, leaving him immobilized as she leans towards Dean, her small chin level with his chest as she holds him up against the wall.

"What is it about you that a Seraph, a _hero_ like Castiel, a man who stood in our Father's shoes and meted out justice to you mud monkeys, that would have him so _debase_ himself for you."

"I like to think it's because of my. . . hrrrk." Her hand tightens around his throat the moment he opens his mouth, and he slides an inch farther up the wall. "Yes, the sarcasm. I had enough of that in his memories. And it is a distraction. For the other brother, I think."

Asmodeus disappears, letting Dean crash to the floor, and reappears behind Sam; with a single breath, she blows out the flame of his Zippo like the candles on a child's birthday cake. Resting a hand on his shoulder, her strength presses him to his knees. "Holy fire. Yes, I have memories of this trick. Hello, Sam. I will be with you in a moment. Lucifer would like a word with you. First, however, I have business to attend to with _your_ brother. He is the last thing holding Castiel back."

Her fingers brush against Sam's hairline, and his lanky frame folds forward as he slumps into unconsciousness: she knows how they work, how they plan, how they think. With Castiel's memories, she has hunted alongside them nearly a year.

The angelic blade slices across the meat of her bicep, staining the white dress in blood and the faint glow of Grace, and Asmodeus turns to look up at Castiel. "Barely a glancing blow. You're not willing to kill this vessel." She admonishes. "How very _human. _And behaving like an obedient dog, again, immediately coming to the defense of your master." Castiel has planted himself between Asmodeus and Dean as the hunter pushes himself to his feet against the wall, keeping her from reaching her intended target. "Did I touch a nerve?"

"No." Castiel runs the flat of his hand down the angelic blade, holding up a palm stained in her blood and his, mingled together: blood to blood. The circuit begun in Utah, refreshed in his blood and his ritual, completes. "But _I_ did."

The movement is inhumanly fast. The strength behind it astounding and unexpected.

And Castiel slams Asmodeus to the ground by her throat, pinning her there, his breathing harsh and ragged, his blue eyes lit with gold by the light of the hurricane lamps. "_Light it." _

No. Not gold. . . amber. _Yellow_. Displaying a demonic strength, Castiel raises eyes straight from Dean Winchester's worst nightmares, nightmares that dated back to the night his mother burned to death on the ceiling of his childhood home, and grinds out the command again. "Dean, _now_. I can't hold her."

Dean lashes out a hand, knocking the hurricane lamp off of the table, and fire chases itself across the floor, a perfect circle spanning the space between the two tables, with the angel trapped within, and Castiel right beside her; separated from the Winchesters by flame once more. He only barely manages to keep himself from being tossed into those flames, as Asmodeus flings her arms, throwing him off of her. "You _fool."_

"Yes." Castiel agrees, flexing his grip on the angelic blade in his hand, and he circles as she moves, trying to keep space between them.

"Cas, get out of there." Dean calls, helping Sam to his feet now that the mojo-whammy was wearing off with her cut off from the outside, and Asmodeus answers in a laugh like ringing churchbells. "He _can't_. Don't you understand, you imbecile? He's tied himself to my Grace: while I am here, he is stuck here. Was this your plan, brother? Tap into the fires of hell through me again, to save your boyfriend?"

. . . Castiel has stolen the Hells Angels power that Asmodeus had once offered him like a drug, and staged a goddamned _cage match_.

"Husband." Castiel corrects automatically, and there's strain in his voice: his eyes are blue again, if they'd ever changed, and his steps are slow and predatory, his center of gravity kept low to allow him to dodge quickly. "Sam, the exorcism."

These were the very worst words for him to say. Asmodeus lunges, and metal clangs against metal as her own blade appears suddenly in her hand. Castiel twists out of her reach fluidly, keeping himself from being thrown back into the flames, making a bridge over the trap with his flesh as he had done to Meg. Cas is fighting like an _angel_, power crackling off of him, but in the light of the flames Asmodeus's wings are spread wide in shadows: Castiel's own shadow is long, narrow, and decidedly human in appearance. "It feels good, doesn't it brother? To have power back, to _be_ something again? So close to what we could make you again. _Whole_. No more slow death following along in his footsteps."

Dean must make a sound because Asmodeus's eyes slide towards him, and Cas launches himself in a counter, recapturing her attention again when he should retreat, drawing it out knowing all he needs is to stall her long enough to allow Sam time to finish.

"_Omni potentas Dei potestatum invoco. . ." _

_"_Oh, yes, Dean. He _knows _he is dying. He knew when he ripped his Grace out what he had done to himself." With a lazy flick of her wrist, Asmodeus counters Castiel's hasty attack, and her blade draws blood in a line across his neck as he wrenches himself back. He is keeping her from slitting his throat, but as the creature she is, one of the _originators_ of sin and temptation, it is her_ words_ that are the most potent weapon. "He could have chosen to do it correctly, to be reborn as Anael did, or to simply survive in a half-life as he had been, but he ripped everything out to prove himself to _you_. He ripped it out, but kept the _memories_, millions of years in a human mind not meant to hold it, because he couldn't risk forgetting _you_."

"Shut _up_." Castiel hisses, blue eyes narrowed, but he doesn't go for the killing blow: he _cannot_. When Dean raises the Colt, prepared to put a bullet in Asmodeus's skull to protect Cas and end it, Castiel reaches out and wrenches her to the side with borrowed strength, towards the flame, locking them into combat again and interposing himself between the body of Claire Novak and the bullet intended to murder the creature inside of her.

He _has_ to save her.

"_Hoc angelorum in obsequentum. . ."_

"Little Castiel. Brother. Father's warrior, his weapon for so long. No sense of self-worth because he has no sense of _self_ outside of you, Dean. He fell for all the wrong reasons and he is _still_ falling, free fall at terminal velocity and all that's left is the sudden stop at the end. The most elaborate, excruciating, drawn-out suicide for infatuation in history. . ."

"I am _not suicidal_." Castiel's protest ends on a choked gasp, as Asmodeus quits toying with him at last. Leaning close to his face, her unnaturally glowing eyes boring into Castiel's as the exorcism threatens her control on her vessel, her words are a carrying whisper and Dean is scrambling to the edge of the circle of Holy Fire prepared to break it.

"Then prove it. Take the power permanently and call off your hunters, brother, or I am taking you with me." Her arm is thrust _into_ Castiel, buried deep into him as she digs claws into the tattered remains of his Grace, just as he had once reached into Sam's body to find his soul, just as he had once borrowed the strength of Bobby's, a direct and deliberate reminder of those stolen images. "You can exorcise me from this vessel, but you will _not_ dash me against Heaven's walls and kill me. I will rip this mangled Grace _apart_, brother. We are not Souls. We _can_ be destroyed. And_. . . blood to blood_, Castiel. This meat you are wearing, _it_ is a compatible vessel for me as well. And with you gone, I will not _need_ your consent."

Castiel's answer is not particularly eloquent, but it is unquestionable in meaning. The sword in his hand slams down, spearing through Claire's forearm just above the glowing line of her presence within him and lodging there _through_ her flesh, a wound that pours forth grace and has her wrenching her hand back out, but the damage is done.

Sam, clutching Castiel's journal, has a look of desperation on his face as he rattles out the rest of the exorcism rite in a crescendo punctuated in the scream of an angel and a man at once. Dean yells out for Castiel, throwing an arm over his eyes to block out the blinding light.

And within a circle that snuffs out as the angelic presence within it does, Castiel Winchester crumples to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, his breath rattling in his chest, as Claire Novak curls into a quivering ball on the floor, clutching her injured arm to herself and sobbing, _herself_ again for the first time in months.


	13. Chapter 13

_Once I rose above the noise and confusion_

_Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion_

_I was soaring ever higher_

_But I flew too high_

_. . ._

As an angel and as a human, Castiel remembers everything, dating back to the dawn of time.

But Castiel doesn't remember the seizure.

It was enough remembering his own fear and pain in Bobby's hospital room, and having to press through the aftermath of his last to save his friend from the ghouls. It was enough remembering the agony Heaven had inflicted on him, Hester's punishment after his Fall and Dean's body wrapped protectively around him for the first time, in his first weeks as a human. It would be infinitely worse, having Dean's terror etched into his mind that way, holding Cas loosely on the floor of the barn in which they'd met, keeping him from hurting himself as pain wracked through his body, a bare reflection of what he felt in his Grace.

Perhaps it's just as well, though, that the gift he had stubbornly clung to, that gift of perfect memory, fails him for the first time just after the cost he paid to Fall this way - able to find them, to remember them, to be with Dean - has been told to the people he loves.

It's a while before Castiel registers anything at all.

. . .

A sweet, cloying, chemical smell assaults his nose and Castiel buries his face further into the warmth beneath him attempting to hide from it, trying to blot it out with leather and gun oil and Old Spice and skin._ Everything_ aches, and exhaustion begins to drag him under again before he's even opened his eyes. It takes him a long, drowsy moment to realize that someone is speaking to him, and even longer to put a name to it.

_Dean_.

He doesn't catch words until he's drifting off again. He tries to answer the quiet pleas by holding on tighter, but his abused body doesn't want to obey him.

. . .

He wakes again to _cold_. He shivers, teeth chattering though he can feel himself covered in blankets with softness beneath him that smells of fabric softener and faintly of Dean, and everything is _wrong_. A small hand rests on his arm, and he flinches away as he fixes on blue, blue eyes.

Claire Novak draws her hand back, wounded by his instinctive reaction, and those eyes fill with tears before she calls out tremulously. "He's awake."

"I'm here." Dean scrambles to his side as if he'd resented being pulled away, and the moment he touches a hand to Castiel's forehead Cas feels as if he's been dropped into a hot bath, soothing, suffusing him with warmth. That is his _Grace _within Dean, and he can feel it trying to hold together the mangled, massacred mess of his own, just as he can feel the quiet presence of the Grace within Sam, shuffling awkwardly beside his brother. Cas closes his eyes again, sinking into the sensation. "No, c'mon, Cas, stay with me."

Cas mumbles something unintelligible and Dean leans into it, sitting on the bed beside him and petting a hand over his sweat-drenched hair.

". . . perhaps not my best plan."

"You _think?"_ Dean's voice is rough and hoarse, and Cas leans into his touch, trying to fit himself along Dean as best he's able despite the audience at his bedside and Dean's precarious perch. This is when he realizes his body, sluggish though it is, is still under his control.

"Better than the purgatory souls." It's half a question, half a declaration, and Dean settles fully onto the bed beside him, sitting up against the headboard and letting Cas lay his head on Dean's leg, folding an arm across the hunter's jean-clad knees.

"Yeah. Still better than the God stint. Long as you pull through it."

Cas nods back off clinging to Dean's warm presence as the meeting his awakening had interrupted continues around him. Dean growls at them when they raise their voices, but he is just as guilty of it himself. After a while (it could be a long time, or no time at all), his eyes drift open again, and he listens to them idly, blinking until he can refocus through slitted eyes and the cage of his lashes.

"You did something to your hair." His voice is barely above a murmur, low and strained, but the conversation around him stops again abruptly.

From across the room, Claire rests her chin on her knees, one arm folded around her shins and the other encased in a cast and hanging loosely, and she nods slightly without meeting Cas's eyes. She is wrapped in a robe of Jody's, swathed in pajamas, and removed from the rest of the gathering as best as she's able.

"Welcome back, Captain Obvious." Dean remarks, but it's not as scathing as it could be and Castiel is fairly certain that the welcome at least is genuine. He can _feel_ Dean's relief, and his husband's hand falls onto his shoulder, squeezing gently.

"No, that's a pretty _guy_ reaction." Jody's voice is warm, faintly amused, and Cas moves slightly to try and find where everyone has positioned themselves, but they are behind him and it seems like an unnecessary effort to raise his head from Dean's lap. Claire, on the other hand, is unmoving against the far wall. Her hair has been chopped short, between her chin and shoulders, and cut into bangs that partially obscure her eyes. Without the weight of the long tresses, she seems windswept and tousled, with a few unruly cowlicks. Previously honey-toned, her hair is almost an exact match for Jody's coloring now, and the dark hair-dye (this was, he assumes, the smell that he woke to) makes her eyes even more vibrant in contrast.

It is perhaps ironic that in making her look less like herself, they inadvertently made her look more like _him. _

_"_How you feeling, Cas?" Sam asks, stepping into his view and leaning over him, and Cas huffs, closing his eyes completely again. "The answer to that is fairly self-apparent."

"In other words, don't ask stupid questions?" Sam smiles faintly: yeah, it's a bitchy answer, but bitchy answers aren't exactly out of the norm for Castiel when he's hurt, hung-over or annoyed, and that particular answer has been following Sam since Castiel's first stint with drinking while they were dealing with the Whore of Babylon.

"Nope. Nu-uh. You're not nodding back off on my lap, dude, you're making my legs fall asleep." Dean's grumble is an affectation, but he hauls Castiel up beside him, tucking Cas against his side and wrapping an arm around Cas's waist to keep him upright. Castiel resettles after a dizzy moment, resting his head against Dean's shoulder. There's a band of bruising around Dean's throat, and it is turning brownish green already. Castiel frowns at it: both at its presence, and the state of it. It is a sad truth that he knows the stages of Dean's healing well enough to understand this means he has been slipping in and out of for a while, with only flashes of memories: soup, Dean nurse-maiding him, and the deep chill that racked his body whenever Dean had to leave the room.

"What have I missed?" He asks, and while he braces himself upright against the bed, squinting against the light in the room, he doesn't pull away from Dean fully either. He's not sure he _can_.

"Whitefish is gone." Bobby answers the question bluntly, summarizing succinctly, and Castiel appreciates the old hunter's willingness to give unvarnished answers to him. Claire, on the other hand, huddles in on herself closer. This, he assumes, is the last _gift_ from Asmodeus. "Didn't even really make the news what with everything else. The big, overt displays have stopped, but it's still riots and war between Crowley and Lucifer. Damage has been done, we're ripping _ourselves _apart much as they're messing with us. Hard to tell human-on-human riots from demons any more. Boys here were just talking about. . ."

"We're going to Kansas. I was just waiting for you to wake up."

"Dean was about to toss you in the back seat of the Impala and drag you there, conscious or not." Sam belies his brother's words, and Castiel nods slightly, unsurprised. Dean, however, is still on the defensive from the argument Cas had been sleeping through.

"You _saw_ him, Sam. You can _see_ him, he's barely upright. That bitch. . ." Claire hides her face against her knees. ". . . tore him apart, and if there's anyone there who can. . ."

"Okay." Castiel's agreement cuts through Dean's defense, rendering it moot, and Dean turns slightly to look at him in surprise. "Kansas. We need to keep moving."

"You don't need to be moving _anywhere_, Cas. You should stay here. Dean and I can. . ."

"_No._" Dean and Castiel deny Sam's plan in unison, and Cas is grateful to hear it. His agreement lends Cas's voice strength, his words conviction. "Dean is right. My grace is irreparably damaged at this point. I need. . ." Cas frowns, tucking his chin down. He doesn't feel comfortable admitting that what he very much does _not_ want is to be separated from Dean.

"What do you mean, _irreparably damaged." _Dean interjects, and there's no hiding Dean's worry.

"We talking Sam's soul before you put the wall back up 'damaged' or. . .?" Bobby is seeking clarification himself, quantifying the problem. Castiel shakes his head slightly, answering the question before Bobby even finishes, and he realizes the gesture has been mistaken when Dean relaxes slightly. He answers aloud for the blind hunter's sake. . . and to gently disabuse Dean of the notion that his denial worked in their favor.

"No. You _are_ humans who _have_ a soul. I _am_ a Grace that _has _a vessel, a body. You can function without a soul, as Sam showed us. . . "

"Yeah, not exactly the best example to use of 'functioning.'" Sam mutters, but he drags over a chair from next to the dresser, turning it around and straddling it, arms folded across the back. Sitting as he is, now, braced against Dean's side, Castiel can see his entire little family _except_ Dean, who he most wants to look at.

". . . but without a Grace, I cease to _exist_."

The room falls still.

"I murdered him." Claire wipes her teary eyes against her knees, her voice broken, horrified, but absolutely _certain. _Castiel shakes his head slightly and it makes the room tilt sickeningly, makes his stomach churn and stabs pain through his temples, but his jaw bunches as he fights to control the reaction, so that his words are forced out between his teeth. "_Asmodeus_ murdered me, Claire. You can't accept blame for everything she did."

"Nobody's murdered _anybody, _goddamnit." Dean growls, and he shoves a pillow next to Castiel to keep him upright as he slips out of the bed, hands clenched into fists, entire body wound to _hit_ something. "Everyone in this room is alive and _staying_ that way. Sam, help me get things together. We're _going_."

. . .

Jody tucks another blanket around Castiel in an ineffective bid to ward off the chill that settles into his bones, and there is a part of him that wishes that no one were around to see him this way. That he could slip away from them all and wait out the inevitable without tarnishing the image of him as a warrior of God by huddling into the bedding for warmth, body wracked with spasms of pain, eyes closed to the light in the room. Jody notices the problem and flicks it off rather than wait for him to admit he needs it.

"Jody, I can _hear_ you fussing over him. Leave it be, he don't want that any more than I do."

"I appreciate her concern." Castiel's words sound faintly stilted, even to him, and Bobby snorts. "You never did learn to lie, didja Feathers? Appreciating her concern ain't the same as wanting someone hovering."

"I know, I know." Jody mutters, and she plants herself in front of Claire, still huddled onto the floor, instead. "C'mon, 'Renee.' Let's give the _menfolk_ time to talk." Her words are sardonic, drenched in sarcasm, but she offers a hand to Claire to pull her off of the floor without the girl bracing on her broken arm, and ushers her out of the room. She leaves the door open slightly, as if expecting the blind bandaged man in a wheelchair and the exhausted broken angel in the bed to get themselves into trouble.

The fact that Bobby's first words are "So, this is about the Grace. Any chance you can take back what you put in us?" might lend some merit to the concern, as he knowingly volunteers for something that at _best_ he expects would maim him further.

"No." Castiel lets himself slide down the headboard, accepting the inevitable defeat of his bid for consciousness, and his limbs feel heavy and uncooperative as he brings his hand to his head, other wrapping around his chest, holding the blankets to himself. "Renee?"

"Amelia isn't answering. Pretty sure that no news ain't good news in this case, circumstances being what they are and the name Novak plastered everywhere. I'll keep my ear to the ground, but not terribly hopeful. So she's gonna be Jody's niece. Lot of kids displaced after Chicago, Detroit and the like, no one'll think different of it." Without a pause Bobby continues on his own topic. "Was that a kneejerk stubborn 'no' or a 'can't happen' no?"

"It was a _no_, Bobby. Thank you for taking care of her. Renee is a fitting name. 'Born again.' This. . . this is a good place for her."

"I've never left a kid to starve, Feathers, ain't bout to start now. Besides she can make herself useful, be my eyes for research. Jody already figures she'll be getting the damned dog trained up too so I can get around easier." Bobby's voice sounds gruff, but Castiel can't help but smile, faintly. He can hear the affection, buried deep as it is. Bobby Singer is a good man. One of the best he has ever met. Claire Novak. . . "Renee Mills" (and perhaps someday Renee Singer). . . will recover in time and be _loved_ here. He will do his best to make sure the future exists, so that she can have this one.

The silence lingers, but he knows Bobby is still there, considering words that will sound like goodbye, and neither of them is good at it. Even before Stull, the last time they were together when the world was set to end, they had given it no real discussion. They'd simply both piled into Bobby's truck and followed Dean Winchester's dwindling tail lights.

Where else would they be?

"If you stay in here, Bobby, I am going to make_ you_ tell _me _stories until I fall asleep." Castiel finally slurs out, his voice thick with sleep and pain, and Bobby huffs out a laugh that sounds suspiciously like grief.

"Idjit."

. . .

Cas can hear car doors slamming out front, and for a moment he's afraid that Dean is leaving him. Lurching awake his breath ratcheting from the slow rattle of sleep to the rapid, gasping pants in no time flat, and Dean's name is on his lips. A small hand rests hesitantly on his shoulder, and Claire is worrying her lower lip in her teeth, blue eyes terrified in the half-light. "It's okay. They were gassing up the car. They're back. It's okay."

Claire has crept back into the room with him, curled herself on the floor against the far wall and come to his side only once he was conscious. It's strange to think of her watching over him while he sleeps, and he wonders what compels her to do so. Bobby and Jody have allowed it, however: he can hear them in the living room, greeting the boys.

"How much do you remember?" Perhaps Castiel could have spent more of his time as a human learning tact, how to soften an inquiry or work his way up to an uncomfortable question, but he had always been able to rely on the crutch of Dean's greater social skills and had barely developed his own beyond knowing when to keep his mouth shut. Claire winces at the abruptness of it, looking away. She doesn't answer him directly.

"It wasn't like when it was you. You asked me, and I said yes, and then I just. . . It was amazing, and it left me feeling so empty, and then you were in my Dad again and. . ."

Castiel braces his hands beneath him on the bed, pushing himself upright carefully, _determined_ not to show weakness any longer. The conversation with Amelia had gone so _badly_, and he needs to do better by this child. "I'm sorry, Claire. I didn't mean to take everything from you, but I had to be able. . ."

"I know, Castiel." Claire's voice is quiet, and she turns her gaze back to Cas, gnawing on her lower lip. "Asmodeus. . . she liked making me watch, I think. I was something else she'd taken away from _you_. She made me. . . I did so much. . ." Her words are breaking, her breath coming out as quiet, gulping sobs, and Castiel touches a hand to her arm above her cast. It's as if the touch has broken some dam keeping her together, and Castiel finds himself with an armful of crying teenager, nearly knocking him back.

Whether she is seeking comfort from the angel who abandoned her or the father whose body he inhabits makes little difference. After an awkward moment of deciding the appropriate reaction, Castiel braces his back against the headboard and folds Claire into his arms. The girl buries her face against his shoulder, her tears soaking through the fabric of his t-shirt, her slight frame wracked with shuddering sobs. This is how Dean and Sam find him minutes later, eyes closed, shushing her quietly, stroking a hand over her cut-short hair as if Jimmy's body remembers a father's instincts.

Sam blinks and looks at his brother for guidance, but Dean's ignoring him now, green eyes fixed on Castiel who remains unaware of his regard. Cas _likes_ kids. Dean's known that for years, watched him watch kids from a distance, watched him surround himself with the squirts at Chitaqua and tell them stories. And underneath it all, Claire Novak is still just a girl who has lost her mother and whatever innocence she may have had left, feeling guilt for something she was powerless to stop.

Dean can relate.

After a moment, Dean pushes off of the doorframe and perches on the foot of the bed, and the feeling of the mattress dipping makes Claire self-conscious. She sniffs and pulls away, dashing her hand over her eyes and shooting Cas a teary-eyed look of apology, before turning to look at the Winchesters: Sam taking up Dean's place against the door with his arms folded across his broad chest, and Dean watching her carefully, waiting for her to meet his eyes.

"Kid, it's not your fault. Cas was right."

"I said yes." Claire corrects him in a wavering voice, and Sam laughs quietly in the door, raising his hand off his arm. Giving consent to angels was just the tip of the iceberg around here. "So did _I_, Claire. And Dean was going to say yes. And Cas. . ."

"You know what I did." Castiel rumbles quietly, watching Claire closely. Something else that Asmodeus could take away from him, the best way to do that was to make Claire watch his greatest shames. The flinch is sign enough that he's right. "Asmodeus made you watch my memories, didn't she."

Dean shifts awkwardly at that realization, hand flying to the back of his neck, ears turning red. Yeah, there was a _lot_ the kid was going to be dealing with, the most horrific acts of two angels gone off the deep end, but. . . well. There were also some things he _really_ didn't want to think of Jimmy's daughter witnessing him doing with Cas, and in that exact moment that was all he was fixating on. "Uh. About that. . ."

"My dad's gone. I know he is." Claire says quietly, and after a moment she almost looks amused at Dean's reaction. Of course, it might be that Dean was turning tomato red, and Sam was in the doorway smirking at his back. "It's okay. I . . . um. I mean, I knew how Castiel felt about you. It was kinda intense, in that warehouse. He was really torn up, but Heaven had told him it was wrong and. . ."

Castiel makes a noise in the back of his throat, warning her into silence, and Claire turns an embarrassed glance his way. "Yeah. Okay. Awkward. Thirty-two flavors of awkward. I mean, worse than walking in on my parents having sex awkward. There's a lot of stuff I'm going to be trying to forget, so let's just. . . let's just kinda lump all of that in with things we're never talking about, okay?"

"Okay." Dean agrees quickly. "Yeah. Okay. That sounds. . . that sounds like a really good idea."

Sam coughs a laugh into his hand, and Claire bites her lip, not wanting to let herself smile as Dean stumbles over his words, pulling them back to safer conversational grounds. "Bobby and Jody are good people. They'll take care of you. Just be good for them, okay? No running off, no getting yourself into trouble, and don't let Bobby fool you with the grumpy old man act. He's a friggin' marshmallow. We'll see you once this is all over with."

Claire's eyes fill with tears again and she glances at Castiel, who meets her gaze steadily. It puts Dean's teeth on edge, realizing what's going on when she leans back into Cas, hugging him. This isn't reaching for the Dad she lost, it's saying goodbye to_ Castiel, _the angel she thought was dying.

Not gonna happen.

"C'mon. We're packed, gassed, got food, and we're ready to go."

. . .

Castiel spends the trip to Kansas huddled under his coat in the back seat, Dean's leather jacket thrown over him as well. He doesn't touch his burger, and the mocha sits abandoned in the cupholder. Dean watches Cas in the rearview most of the time, Sam watches Dean, and the tension between them all is palpable. Dean can _see_ Castiel becoming more pale and drawn, and knows the determination that has him gritting his teeth and refusing to voice complaint.

_I am not __weak_, Castiel declares in Dean's memory, stubborn and unwilling to accept comfort, determined not to be a 'burden,' and goddamnit he should have _told_ Dean it was this bad. He should have never gone to that barn, should have kept himself back, kept himself _safe_. Dean can feel his anger at Cas ebbing and receding, and his guilt making it all worse.

"Don't, Dean." Castiel rumbles quietly, and Dean couldn't even tell he was awake, his eyes masked behind his sunglasses, body lax and hidden beneath the mound of leather. Nevertheless, his ability to read Dean still seems unaffected. "Please don't do that."

Dean's knuckles are white on the steering wheel, and the narrow two-lane highways they're taking to avoid the major cities and their potential riots and demonic spotters are enough distraction for him to reasonably put off responding. Sam frowns at his brother from the passenger's seat, and turns to look at Cas, resting an elbow on the seat back. "You should go back to sleep, Cas. It's Nebraska, you're not missing anything trust me. We'll wake you up once we get to Kansas."

"No." It's not that Cas believes that Lucifer, the last angel they have to ward their sleep against, has any call to slide into _his_ dreams any more. It's not even like the first days of his humanity, when he felt as if the world was slipping away from him every time he closed his eyes. Jaw bunched, Castiel carefully sets the jackets aside and picks up his coffee. Despite being hours old and stone-cold, he pops the plastic lid off of it and takes a deep pull, trying to ignore how it makes his stomach churn. It's a small act of defiance, perhaps, but Sam doesn't seem to be offended by it: just worried for his friend. Cas sounds wretched; depressed and stubborn and tired, but determined. "I've slept enough, Sam. I am not going to spend my last days on earth. . ."

They hit the rumble strip as Dean abruptly jerks the car to the side of the road, putting her into park in the scraggly weeds framing the highway and throwing open the driver's side door. Sam politely looks away as his brother crawls into the back seat with Cas, wrapping his arms around the other man's slim frame and pulling him into his lap, taking the coffee from his hands and putting it back in the cup holder. "Don't you fucking talk like that. You don't get to give up, Cas, do you hear me? We'll find a way to fix this. Please, just. . ."

Cas goes willingly, folding himself into Dean, and after a moment it's hard to tell who is comforting whom. Sliding his sunglasses off and putting them aside, Cas rests his head against Dean's, a hand rubbing his back slowly, and he murmurs apologies into Dean's hair. Sam feels like an interloper again, but this is better for Dean than the stony silences, and Cas. . . whether the fallen angel wants to _say_ it or not, he's seen how much better Cas seems when Dean's with him. Sam has known for a while, since an embarrassed Dean tried to explain, sitting on the other side of a campfire asking if they couldn't talk about guns or monsters instead, that the feeling goes both ways.

_I know that I don't feel whole anymore without him there . . ._

Sam doesn't give Dean time to decide to be embarrassed again. Sliding across the front seat, he puts the car into drive and eases them back onto the road, leaving his brother in the back seat with Cas for the rest of the trip. Cas turns his head, shooting Sam a thankful look from deepset, bloodshot eyes, and Sam nods slightly in answer before tilting the rearview to look out the back window instead. "Same deal as last time: I'll drive, but you keep it PG rated back there, okay?"

The fact that the very next thing he hears is a muffled noise of surprise from Cas and the tell-tale sounds of kissing is far from shocking. Dean's always been a PG-13 kind of guy at best.

"Smartass." Sam mutters fondly.

. . .

Cas yawns, a jaw-cracking motion that leaves him stiffened in Dean's arms, stubbornly refusing to relax, and Dean presses his fingers to the nape of Cas's neck, massaging gently as if he's afraid to break him. "C'mon, Cas. We're getting there. Just close your eyes and. . ."

"I said no, Dean." Cas grumbles, and he nuzzles into Dean's neck, pressing a kiss to the bruises from the angel's stranglehold. He feels as if his grip on his vessel is trying to dissolve, and that the next time he closes his eyes they could refuse to open again. He doesn't even want to _blink_, let alone sleep. Dean's presence anchors him, but his exhaustion has permeated every cell of his body, and he refuses to submit. "Talk to me?"

Dean swallows: Cas can feel the motion, and he tucks his head beneath Dean's chin further, listening to the thickness in Dean's rough voice. "Nah, Cas. You're the storyteller here. You wanna stay awake, you talk to _me._"

Sam reaches forward, clicking off the radio. Static bursts intermittently crept into the music anyway, far out in the middle of nowhere as they are, and he wouldn't object to hearing something else.

For a moment, both Winchesters wonder if the angel's resolve gave out, if he slipped into sleep regardless. Castiel doesn't want to talk about Heaven. He can't, he won't let himself consider his lost home. He doesn't want to talk of the brothers and sisters he lost, murdered, or betrayed. That leaves stories of humanity, of history, things he has witnessed or heard or read in his millions of years guarding the earth, unable to interact with his human charges . . .

He begins with Gilgamesh, the first human myth he had seen recorded, had watched grow and change in the telling of it. An arrogant, womanizing young man. . . beautiful and god-gifted and reckless, prone to violence and drinking and sin. His capricious deities determined he was out of line, failing to fall into their plans for him to lead humanity as their king, and so they created a companion for him. Endiku came into the world with no concept of humanity, wild and untamed, and his first meeting with Gilgamesh they fought fiercely. Somehow, however, they became everything to each other.

Dean draws Cas down with him, stretching across the back seat as best he's able and resting Castiel on his chest, their legs tangled onto the floorboards. It's not terribly comfortable for Dean, pressing him into the seat and putting a crick in his neck as he rests his head against the door, but Cas melts into him and as he speaks he drums his fingertips lightly against Dean's chest in time with his heartbeat, and that's incentive enough to stay that way.

Sam is silent in the front seat, his eyes fixed on the road, his hands tight on the steering wheel. Dean may not know where this story is going, but _Sam _does, and it breaks his heart to hear the pain in Castiel's voice at telling it.

As they cross Nebraska, Castiel tells stories of Gilgamesh and Endiku's adventures, their defiance of the gods, their inseparable bond. He tells of the anger of the gods as Gilgamesh turned his newfound purpose against them, and their decision to punish them both. Endiku had _failed_ in his intended role: while Gilgamesh had changed, he hadn't become what the gods had planned for him, he had risen against them instead with Endiku at his side. So they separate them, the worst punishment they could devise. When he reaches Endiku's wasting sickness and slow death, the most grievous punishment the gods could grant them both, Dean buries his face into Cas's hair and shakes his head slightly, squeezing Cas in his arms.

"Goddamnit Cas. _Stop_."

"Gilgamesh's story isn't over, though, Dean." Castiel murmurs quietly, and his hand splays across Dean's chest now, soaking in his warmth through his shirts. "There's so much more after. He grieves for Endiku, but he still fights, still goes on to lead humanity for _humanity's _sake, not for his gods . . ."

"We're not a frikkin' story, man. And I'm not some sort of mythical leader. . . "

"You will be, and you _are_." Cas argues, and Sam interrupts them, reaching out to flick on the radio again and raising his voice to speak over the both of them.

"I'm not listening to you two fight right now, okay? You're not doing this crap to yourselves. We're close enough to Omaha for music. So. . . shut up."

. . .

They never needed to discuss where they were going. Kansas is by no means a small state, with thousands of potential sites for whomever sent Cas that little bit of Puppet Master instant messaging, and yet there was no question in any of their minds what it meant.

There has only ever been one place in all of Kansas to Castiel, one spot that would need no elaboration to bring Cas to it.

They drive past the KU campus on their way into Lawrence, and Dean shifts to sitting up again, carefully taking Cas with him as he does. Rolling his neck to loosen the tensed muscles there, he stretches his arms until they hit the roof of the car, flattening his forearms along it. Castiel watches the motion covetously, how his broad shoulders move, the bare strip of stomach the motion reveals, and Dean lets his arm fall loosely across Castiel's shoulders afterwards, smirking faintly and falling back on the old joke. "Stop objectifying me, Cas."

"You're not an object. But you are. . . _very_ appealing." Cas rumbles, and in the front seat Sam rolls his eyes.

"Less make-out lead up, more guns and knives."

"How do you feel about casual pre-hunt foreplay?" Dean quips, but he's already dragging his jacket on, giving Cas his coat, sheath and sword back and he leans across the front seat to the glove compartment (Castiel stares blatantly) and pulls Cas's gun and holster back out of it, rearming the ailing angel.

"Generally opposed." Sam's tense in the front seat, and Dean's watching his brother now as much as he is Cas, though he doesn't make an issue of it. By the time they roll through the gates of Stull Cemetery, the daylight is dwindling and Sam Winchester is wound tight as piano wire, tense and anxious. He hasn't been back here since that day. . . and for all they know, Lucifer could be waiting for him right now.

There's nothing to show where he dove into Hell for humanity. The Impala parks just where she had before, and all three men stare out of the car without speaking at the flat, unmarked area of land. Castiel throws open the rear door and slips out after a moment, Dean cursing under his breath and following immediately on Cas's heels. "Where are you. . .?"

"There." Castiel says, his hand rising, finger pointing, at the burned out church across the cemetery plots. With a flick of his other hand, he drops his sword into his grip as he walks, his steps quick and purposeful, without waiting for the brothers. Dean outpaces him deliberately after a moment, putting himself between Cas and the small stone building with its weather-beaten stone walls, missing half its timber roof. This is a place of legend, a supposed haunted site, part of folktales and ghost stories across the US: and it's pretty much bogus. There hadn't been a gateway to hell here until Sam _made_ one.

Dean takes point, prowling towards the church, Colt in hand and steady. Sam stays behind Cas, his own gun up, sweeping the shadowed graveyard with his gaze as if clearing a room. And Castiel stalks between them smoothly, for all appearances ready for a fight, regardless of his _actual_ state. Nothing distinguishes the church as being site of a trap. It remains dark and empty in appearance. . . right until Dean slips into the open stone archway of the missing door and seems to disappear entirely.

Cas staggers, gasping in pain as his connection to Dean seems to sever, the tie to his own Grace within Dean's soul that kept him upright. He doesn't wait for Sam, doesn't stop when Sam reaches a hand out to his shoulder: he throws himself into the empty doorway and apparently abandoned church, Sam on his heels, and stumbles right into Dean.

Subsequently, all _three_ of them find themselves in a brightly lit and crowded room, surrounded with swords at their throats. Hands in the air, finger resting alongside the Colt rather than on the trigger, Dean greets his brother and angel sardonically. "So, um. . . I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

"Geeze, Dean-o. Never heard_ that_ one before."

_Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man_

_Though my mind could think I still was a mad man_

_I hear the voices when I'm dreaming_

_I can hear them say_

* * *

**_Author's Note: _**_Ladies and gents, this is your last chance to let me know how you want this to end! I have multiple possibilities planned out, but it's all decided very quickly now. . . so! Kripke-esque Tragedy? Fanfic-style Hopeful? Author's choice? Weigh in quickly, let me know! (Not that I'll tell you the decision once it's made. . . mwahaha). Meanwhile. . . see you next chapter!_


	14. Chapter 14

_**Author's Note:**_ _The people have spoken! Okay, feel free to keep voting on the outcome if you want, but we're getting a pretty strong consensus here. Meanwhile, this chapter is going to be juggling a lot of voices and some old and new faces. Hope you enjoy! Reviews are love, please share the love!_

_Masquerading as a man with a reason  
My charade is the event of the season  
And if I claim to be a wise man, well  
It surely means that I don't know_

The room is large, opulent, and clearly not the interior of a rotting abandoned church. It was the Van Nuys Green Room all over again, and all Dean can see, given the largely unfamiliar (but unquestionably interesting) crowd, is deep wood-tones and gilded edges. Mostly, his attention is otherwise captured. Dean resists the urge to wink at the buxom blonde in a leather corset over a too-tight novelty t-shirt partially because his husband is already glaring at her with an angelic blade pressing a shallow divet into her breast, but largely because she has an honest-to-god Viking sword in a two-handed grip at Dean's throat. He flashes his best grin at her anyway.

Considering Dean's mood has changed drastically in the time it took Sam and Cas to tumble down the rabbit hole with him, this is all feeling pretty damned hilarious. Because there's at least one familiar face and one other (obnoxiously) familiar voice in this room, and he's feeling a hell of a lot more hope about _everything_ than he did earlier. Hell, he's downright giddy.

"We come in peace." Dean addresses the blonde cheekily, and Cas huffs under his breath in annoyance. "Cas, do me a favor and back away from the nice lady slowly before she decides to play _Highlander_ on me?"

"The 'nice lady' is a death goddess, Dean, and I would appreciate it if you would refrain from flirting with her in front of me." Jealousy, thy name is Castiel. Dean _doesn't _resist rolling his eyes, and the blood-red lips of the blonde in front of him quirk faintly in amusement, though she doesn't relax at all. "And no, I am fine here until she lowers her sword." After a pause, he finds he can't resist correcting Dean. "And she is Norse, not Scottish."

"Gee, I wouldn't have guessed." Dean drawls, amused by Castiel's missed reference. "Would you have guessed, Sam?"

"Kinda busy right now, Dean. Not getting pulled into this." Sam deflects from behind them, where he has turned to cover their rear against whatever other goth-babes were behind them, one shoulder to Dean's back as he's slotted to cover both he and Cas. In truth, the younger Winchester is rather occupied staring at Kali's raised palm in front of him and the flames dancing over her arms make sweat prickle on his skin. "Work out your own marital issues."

"Bro, you do realize a stiff breeze would blow you over, and the 'death goddess' there can see that, right?" A face joins the voice, and Gabriel shifts the lollipop in his mouth from one side to the other to speak around it as it pushes out his cheek, his hands in his pockets and his eyebrows raised at Castiel. "You gonna even say hello? And . . . hold the phones, _marital_ issues?"

"You do see that's _Gabriel_ right there, right Cas?" Dean says slowly, still holding his hands in the air, as if Castiel should be cluing in to what this all means for them. Cas cuts blue eyes sideways at him, and frowns. "Yes. I see Gabriel, Dean. I do not know why that should mean we lower our guard and allow you to be beheaded, however. The last any of us heard my brother was intending to kill us."

"Touchy, touchy. Geeze, is there anyone who _didn't_ want to kill you in the last few months? Besides, I get a pass 'cause I'm the only person in the room to bring _you_ back, cupcake."

"An unwise decision on your part. You should have killed him before he began this." Kali's rich voice rolls out, but Castiel's attention is caught by another familiar face in the room. Stepping up beside him, interposing herself between the Valkyrie and the fallen angel, Anna Milton's slender hand rests on Castiel's wrist: holding it without exerting her strength, and maybe it's Dean's imagination but he swears he can see a difference in Cas, having so much of his former Grace in one room with him. Jaw bunched, stubborn set to his shoulders, he's determined not to show weakness.

"There are people here who would like an excuse to kill you, Castiel." Her words a murmur, her honest eyes unblinking, and she waits for Castiel to listen to her. It's the first time Dean's been on the outside of a silent conversation with Castiel, and it's a little surreal to see it in action. Whether Anna is using telepathy, or they just know each other well enough from millennia of Cas taking her orders, after a moment the recalcitrant former angel flips his blade in his hand and withdraws a step back to Dean's side with a curt nod in answer to a silent plea. Anna nudges the Valkyrie's sword away from Dean's throat with the same unforced motions, two fingers to a blade so sharp and so deadly that it should slice into them, a mere suggestion rather than forced surrender, and she fixes that same earnest look on the blonde. "Kara, please."

Snorting, the Valkyrie sheaths her sword smoothly, the hilt rising above her muscled shoulder as she plants a fist on her leather-clad hip, offering an uninhibited, wild grin to Dean now that she isn't threatening him. She's appraising the three hunters blatantly. "Hardly worth the effort to kill the broken one. At least this one looks strong. I would have preferred the giant, though."

"I _told_ you not to flirt with her." Castiel grumbles under his breath, and Dean's pretty sure his leaning into Dean's shoulder and lowering his voice while glaring at the rest of the room with bloodshot, angry eyes is the general equivalent of stamping him with a 'mine, keep off' warning.

"The giant, huh?" Dean drags his gaze from her studded steel-toed biker boots to the top of her curly blonde hair, streaked with red and purple, her storm-gray eyes level with his, and snorts. "It ain't like you're exactly petite, lady."

And maybe Dean's a bastard, but he thinks Castiel's jealousy is awesome. Particularly when he's reduced to a low growl, as he is, and is clamping a vice grip on Dean's arm, drawing him back possessively. Dean looks forward to paying for this later, and he is convinced now that there _will_ be a later.

"Thank you." The Valkyrie known as Kara grins, and it grows to encompass Sam, giving his baby brother a shameless once-over from the rear as he shuffles carefully to Dean's side without turning, watching Gabriel talk Kali down and keeping a wary eye on the Hindu goddess's still flaming hands. "I still like the giant better. Taller men are more virile."

Nudging Sam in the ribs, Dean leers. "What, him? He's. . ."

"Standing right here and a little weirded out by you right now, man." Sam grumbles. "If you start with the pay-by-the-pound idea again . . ."

"It's about the height, dude, I'm thinking pay-by-the-inch." And Kara bursts into laughter that leaves the listener in absolutely no doubt that she took that thought right to the gutter and relished it. Reaching over to clap Dean on the shoulder with a force that makes his knees want to buckle, she addresses Gabriel.

"I like this one; he amuses me. My sisters and I will allow them to live."

Dean shoots a look of triumph at Castiel. _This_ is why he flirts; he's disarming and damned good at it. Castiel doesn't seem mollified by it, and Anna is giving him a look of blatant disapproval, so Dean shrugs and shoots them both his best sheepish grin, earning him an eye-roll from both simultaneously. Hey, one less scary supernatural group out to kill him. It's called progress in his book. Dean's putting money on Kali being queen of the 'slaughter the Winchesters' crowd now; and she has proven immune even to _his_ considerable charms, so letting the half-pint archangel run interference for them there sounds like a plan. Now they can get their bearings. Almost absently, he rubs his neck, checking for blood as he tries to take in the crowd; this is a group he damn sure doesn't want to be leaving blood around for.

"We gonna make introductions? Feeling like I just walked into the Hall of Justice without an idea who's suited up, or what the plan is . . ."

"Super Friends, Dean? Seriously?" Sam bitches under his breath.

"_Justice League_, dude. Get with the times."

"I have no idea what either of you are talking about." Castiel grumps.

"You don't wanna know." Sam reassures him.

"While I am happy you have all decided not to make me work while I am finishing these wings, waiting through the chatter and formalities is becoming tiresome." Dean knows that voice. He definitely knows the skeletal man revealed when the Valkyrie moves aside, a break in the crowd giving him a clear view to a table at the center: it is a broad, polished-wood conference table that, at the very far end, has a place setting for one.

Death delicately touches a napkin to his lips, and looks up, his nose giving him the appearance of a vulture turning away from the half-eaten chicken wing in his slender, knobby fingers, and inclines his head politely in greeting to Dean. "You've arrived. I was beginning to wonder if you had been. . ." that ancient gaze slides to Castiel, and it makes Dean's heart clench how _knowing_ that look is, as if he has counted every minute remaining of Castiel's life ". . . distracted."

"Come sit with me." The gathering is moving, Death's voice enough to spur the hodgepodge group into motion, and Dean lets Anna buoy them along the crowd. There are at least thirty people in the room, possibly edging towards forty, and they're probably the strangest mishmash of cultures Dean's ever seen outside of airports and tourist traps.

Gabriel, the least likely ruler of Heaven, has apparently rallied the pagans across the world. Just how many cultures _had_ the Trickster infiltrated? This makes _sense_, it's a friggin' godsend (pun intended), and it finally changes the odds. Dean just wishes he knew why, looking at the crowd edges him away from the relief he first felt wash over him when he saw Anna's familiar scarlet hair and heard Gabriel's voice, on to anger and irritation.

Sam yelps beside him, and Dean half-turns with his hand twitching around the grip of the Colt, ready to defend, to find Sam has turned scarlet and is staring at the Valkyrie as she strides towards the head of the table and Death, an extra sway in her ample hips and a laugh shaking her shoulders. Sam is clutching his ass protectively, and it's not hard to figure out from there that his little brother is being manhandled by a Norse goddess built like a roller-derby queen and dressed like a punk rocker.

Sam fixes his patented bitchface on Dean, and holds up a warning finger. "Not a word, Dean."

"You've done worse."

"He's done better." Another voice interjects cheekily, and Bernie-the-Thunderbird saunters past in the opposite direction, headed towards Shining Sandra the Earth Mother at the opposite end of the table. After a moment of staring, Dean slaps Sam's shoulder. "And _that_ is why you need to stick to human chicks, Sammy."

"Oh, look, _Anna_ has found _Cas_ a seat." Sam says pointedly, scowling at his brother.

". . . Touché."

"Carthage could be burning around you, and you overgrown imbeciles would find time to bicker." The snide English voice is faintly slurred but familiar nonetheless. Balthazar has certainly looked better. Dean's not sure how much alcohol he must have consumed to reach _drunk_, but he's shitfaced at this point, pulling a chair out and dropping himself into it without letting his champagne slosh and go to waste, putting the bottle down in front of himself. Dean blinks and exchanges a look with Sam, before turning to look at Castiel and Anna. Castiel is watching Balthazar sadly as he speaks to two young-looking blue-eyed men, seeming out of place, and lost, and looking to Cas as if he has answers, and Anna has turned to look away from her brothers, a frown pulling her lips down, doe eyes haunted.

And that's when it hits Dean, really hits him: Heaven has closed its doors.

Every angel in this room is _falling_.

Gabriel doesn't seem affected. Bounding to the front of the room, he shoots a wink at the two blondes with Kara, clearly her sisters, tips an imaginary hat to Shining Sandra, who looks at him indulgently, and blows a kiss to Kali, who watches him darkly without any outward indication of her fondness of the archangel. "Alright, then. Where were we?"

"You know precisely where we were, Gabriel." Death spears a piece of fried okra delicately with his fork, and he chews carefully and swallows before continuing. "The demon is intercepting my children."

"Wait, _Crowley? _Stealing Reapers?" Dean turns the whispered question to Anna after Balthazar responds by pouring himself another drink, and Anna nods slightly, taking a seat between Balthazar and Castiel. Cas drops into the chair selected for him as if his legs have decided they couldn't take standing anymore, and Dean watches him carefully as he listens to Anna's response, Sam falling in beside him, leaning against one of the walls rather than trap themselves at a table if anyone decided to start getting testy again.

"With power in Hell sliding towards Lucifer, and Heaven closed to everyone but the Reapers . . ." Dean and Sam are sitting with the most depressed looking bunch of celestial beings he has ever encountered. Cas drops one hand from his head, pressing his palm over Anna's hand on the table. ". . . Crowley has been hard-pressed for power. He needs the souls. Several Reapers have been waylaid, and now there are several missing from . . ."

"Crowley isn't the kind to fight a losing war." Dean frowns, and he ignores a warning look from several of the beings around them at the table for talking while Gabriel and Death are speaking, while the Valkyries are offering to work with the Reapers. "Soon as he figures out he's outgunned, he bolts, until someone makes him a better offer." Sam's nodding, and Cas is pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes closed, but confirms the assessment for his sister's sake.

"He's fighting for his survival." Anna shrugs. "He has been fighting a two-pronged war with tenuous allies. Every battle _we_ win. . ."

And there it was. What's been bothering Dean, Anna's put her finger right on it. "Yeah, and what battles would those be?"

"The battles _we_ have been fighting on behalf of your entire bloody planet. The one that the lot of us idiots decided we were willing to lose everything for. . ." Dean's never seen Balthazar angry. He wasn't sure it was possible. Dangerous as hell with a smarmy grin and a smartass comment, sure; and maybe the change of character in the falling angel is enough that he should take it as warning, but Dean's _pissed _and he isn't keeping his voice down any longer.

"Bullshit, man. You're fighting _against _Crowley and Lucifer, but you're sure as fuck not fighting _for _humanity." Every eye in the room slides sideways towards Dean, and he'd be nervous about being under the regard of so many beings who he looks like a flea to if that weren't pretty much the story of his life the last few years. Hell, he'd _married _a creature who had played God, a man who still periodically slipped into impassioned tangents about the evolution of humanity, scaring off everything in a hundred miles radius of Texas Hill Country creeks and rivers in Dean's first real chance to fish in years. It was getting hard to impress him. While one of the only beings who _does_ scare the hell out of him inherently is watching Dean like a fascinating zoo animal as he eats greasy fried foods, and while Dean's pretty sure he's pissing away his chance to save Cas, he can't just . . . _ignore _ this.

"What _is_ it with you people? You fucking _abandoned_ us."

"You look around you, Dean? Every one of us in this room is here because. . ." Gabriel begins, and the archangel's eyes are narrowed into dangerous slits. Maybe he shouldn't be interrupting the jackass who's proven he can kill Dean a few hundred times over, who's been _leading_ the war and broke ranks to do it, but Dean's riding his momentum through.

"Every one of you in this room is here because you have a frikking grudge match to fight. If you were here for humanity you'd be _here_ for humanity. I don't want to hear some bullshit about battles and losses, and if Crowley screwed you over or Lucifer killed your friends. You say you're fighting for us, but you let the entire damned _planet_ think they were on their own in this." Jabbing a finger in Gabriel's direction, Dean fumes, shrugging Sam's hand off. His baby brother may be trying to save his life, and he gets that, but he's not ready to be reined in. "You can't tell me _you_ - of all goddamned people - don't know how to use a fucking television. The demons, Lucifer's side, Crowley's side? _They're_ all over the news. You're 'winning battles'? Show us some goddamned sign that _anyone _with a snowball's chance is fighting for us. You can't tell me it's because you're keeping a low profile, we all _know _who you people are. You've been public before, you've had your. . . your adoring audiences and your devout worshippers. People are ripping each other _apart_, and they're doing it because _you_ took their hope away from them."

Hell, _Cas_ lost hope, and Dean and Sam have been running on fumes at best. The _only_ bright spot since Heaven sounded the retreat, since everything went public, was in Sioux Falls. It was a place where the people _knew_ what was going on, and how to fight back. The only thing humanity has to fight back against is _each other_.

Dean's breathing hard, fists clenched at his sides, head raised and muscles tensed, waiting for one of them to smite him. He knows it takes some serious guts and a hell of a lot of blind loyalty and brotherly love for Sam to clear his throat, and he's expecting him to play the negotiator, to try and smooth this over for him. "Dean's right. . ." Sam's words are aimed directly at Gabriel, and maybe Dean shouldn't be so surprised to have his brother's support. ". . . You guys, you did to humanity _exactly_ what God did to you angels."

Dean can't help but let his gaze be pulled to Cas at those words. Anna looks stricken, but Cas. . . Castiel's weary blue eyes are wide and fixed on Dean as if he hung the moon, as if he's the answer to every question in the world. Dean knows Cas loves him: hell, the feeling's mutual, clearly. But this is more than just that. This is the man who believes, who has _always_ believed, that Dean Winchester's role in life is to save all of them: and who gambled everything on that belief.

"Why you insolent. . ." A tall man, his accent thick and Russian, pushes himself violently to his feet and Castiel's expression shuts down again entirely as he turns his head towards the man without rising, his hands flat on the table.

"_Righteous_. The word you are looking for is _righteous._"

Mostly, Dean is just pissed. He has reason to be. (Maybe that's why they call it _righteous anger_. . . Fuck, he is never living this moment down.)

"Well, looks like we have a volunteer from the audience." Gabriel's smirking at him, and when did the little bastard get so _close_? His voice is lowered, hazel eyes challenging, and maybe, just maybe, someday Dean will learn not to bait an archangel. But hey, he's already done it to the complete set, so. . . "You ready to put your money where your mouth is, there, Dean-o?"

"To the voice of the people." Balthazar drawls, raising his glass and draining it again.

Terms like 'wanted felon' and 'legally dead' really don't mean much in a post-apocalyptic world or to a bunch of pretentious d-bags who like to play god. If they go out there and pull a 'bow down to me' card at the world, _they're_ going to face resistance. Humanity's just stubborn enough to tell their protectors to fuck off if they played it too heavy-handed, considering the opposition identified itself as Christian, and he is rolling with the pagans now. He and Sammy have already been disseminating information, teaching people how to protect themselves, as best as they can. . . this is just the next step in that. It's what he's going to keep telling himself as he grinds his teeth and glares down at Gabriel.

"I'll do my part, _Gabby_, if you do yours."

"Lovely. Now we're all on board." Death is watching the proceeding with an air of almost boredom; you'd think an eternal being, who would be there to reap all of them in this room someday, might show a little interest at something _new_ going on, but he's got his hands folded on the table like he's the Michael Corleone of this freaky little gathering. "The Valkyrie will divide amongst the Reapers. . ." He inclines his head slightly to Kara and the blondes

". . . And take a few gods with each of them. Which'll give us a shot at Crowley's power source. That leaves us making sure the humans don't stampede and trample themselves. . ." Gabriel's smirk twists his lips, and he turns away from Dean, and fixes his leer on the younger Winchester now. ". . . And catching Satan by the tail."

Sam really, really, doesn't like that look. "I'm not. . . Lucifer's not here right now. I'm just. . . _me_."

"Mm. And Lucy hasn't popped into your head at all to say hi, huh? Because I find that hard to believe, since you crazy kids started warding your dreams, keeping angels outta your heads, and I had to resort to telegramming direct into the brainpan of your pet angel there."

"I am not a pet." Castiel mutters, but he's got his elbows braced and palms pressed over his eyes again. Dean rests a hand on his shoulder, soothing away the old sting of Hester and Zachariah's accusations and reestablishing the support of his Grace in contact, trying to lend Cas some strength.

"None of you is using Sam as bait in some trap." Dean's words are low enough to be a growl, and there's no questioning the threat to his tone; and the Russian is on his feet, and Dean swears there's flames in Kali's eyes, three identical slender women in black suits with beaked noses watch him with unblinking beady black eyes with their heads cocked to the side, and there's an angry looking burly old man with a Scots accent whose rumbling accusation seems to literally shake the room.

"And what exactly have _you_ accomplished, then, that you believe you can speak to _us_, insects?"

"What, do you want a fucking list?" Someday, Dean's going to learn to back down from a fight he has no chance of winning. But it won't be today. "Azazel. Alastair. Samhain. Zachariah. Lilith. Raphael. Ba'el. Asmodeus. And we delayed the Apocalypse long enough for _you_ guys to get your asses in gear by boxing Lucifer and Michael in the first place."

"Down, boy." Gabriel rolls his eyes, and points a finger at both Dean and the Celtic god, standing them down. The Trickster has been walking a delicate line with his alliances, and the Winchesters are a spark in a powder keg. "Let's try _not _making this a pissing contest?"

"What do you have in mind?" Sam asks slowly, cautiously, and he holds a hand up to silence his brother before he can start protesting even listening to the plan. "I'm not saying yes again, Dean, but if they've worked out a plan. . ."

"Dreams." Castiel's brow is knitted, and he raises his head again to look at Gabriel curiously. "Could that work?"

"We'll work something out." With a snap, Gabriel is back at the front of the room, looking down the table with his wicked smirk. He needs to clear this place out, get them out of each other's hair before things go south. "Alright. We've got enough to go on for now. Valkyries, divide 'em up. Death, hope not to see you anytime soon. . ."

Death doesn't seem at all affected by Gabriel's quip, and disappears before the words are out of his mouth. Tough crowd.

". . . And now I need a moment with the fam. Anyone who isn't part of the Judeo-Christian pantheon, vamoose." Pointing a finger at the Winchester contingent without bothering to turn and face them, Gabriel's lips curl into a mocking grin. "You three stay put. I'm including the Antichrist, the Messiah, and the False God." Unsurprisingly, none of the Winchesters appreciate the titles the archangel has chosen for them, and he seems supremely unconcerned by their annoyance. "The rest of you, have fun storming the castle!"

Castiel blinks slowly, and then turns to look at Dean, his voice not lowered enough to keep a gaggle of celestial beings from hearing the sudden satisfaction in his tones. "I understood that reference, Dean!"

The tension between the lot of them snaps, dissipating. Cas seems to have no idea why Dean is suddenly swallowing a laugh, Sam is rubbing his jaw to hide a smile, the Valkyrie heartily laugh their way out of the church, and Gabriel's head swings towards him, hazel eyes wide as a kid on Christmas. "Oh my Dad, who invited Captain America?"

". . . I have not been a captain in years, Gabriel, and my marriage is not legally sanctioned with the documentation to provide me American citizenship, though my vessel. . ."

"He hasn't even seen the movie?" Gabriel ignores Castiel's confusion, looking to Dean with something bordering on glee as the crowd drains away, leaving four angels, an archangel, and the three Winchesters. "That was pure _unscripted_ Steve Rogers?"

Dean nods, giving in to his laughter. "Yeah." Squeezing Cas's shoulder, he chortles. "Yeah, that was just _Cas_. Wait, you've been ducking out of Heaven to catch frikkin' superhero movies?"

"Hells, yeah, I did! Watched Thor too. They cast a snarky Brit as me in them. . ."

"You should be so lucky." Balthazar interjects smoothly, snarkily, managing to exude sarcastic Britishism through every motion and glance, despite being drunk and no more English in actuality than Cas is American.

". . . Took a couple of Valkyrie with me, dropped a long table in the middle of a theater, bit of mead, some food. . . had a _lot_ of really confused humans in the theater _that_ day, let me tell you, but damned if those chicks don't know how to party."

Castiel's annoyance is growing, and he looks to Sam for sympathy and finds his friend poorly hiding his amusement. Huffing, Castiel looks away, scowling with his elbow braced on the table and his thumb pressed to his temple, and it was _baby in a trenchcoat_ all over again. Sulking. "Hey, c'mon Cas. This is great! Look. . ." Sam gestures at Dean, Gabriel and Balthazar. "It's so nice to see _in-laws_ getting along, right?"

Dean stops laughing immediately.

Gabriel and Balthazar look suddenly predatory.

Samandriel and Inias look to each other, and then pull out chairs at the table next to each other, prepared to spectate.

Anna sighs and leans back in her seat, which draws Dean's eyes to her, and suddenly he's looking like he swallowed his tongue, finally paying attention to the fact that his husband's sitting beside his one-night-stand. . . who is now apparently his sister-in-law.

As Claire had said: _Awkward_.

Sam just threw him under the bus. He was going to have to get the bitch back for that, soon.


	15. Chapter 15

**_Author's Note: _**_ Broken laptop, car accident, work woes, a bit of subsequent inspirational deadlock because of the other things, but we're back! Sorry for the wait, and thank you all to everyone who sent me PMs or reviews checking on me, encouraging me, or even telling me they'd hunt me down if I abandoned the story after getting them invested (looking at you, my dear highly invested, supportive and yet strangely violent-minded Mrstserc!). _

_I'd intended for this to be done in 17 chapters, like Before the Fall was. Why 17? Heck if I know, that's just what happened the first time and I like symmetry! It has no particular significance to me number-wise, which is just as well because the characters didn't shut up, so this chapter is being split here. I won't lose sleep over it when we end a few chapters later than intended. Maybe. Possibly. Depending on how OCD I feel that day. Either way, we're picking up where we left off (partially: you'll see, there's a bit of framing from a later point). Rest assured, this will not become another abandoned WIP fic (though I am not innocent of such things)._

_ All that aside. . . back to the story!_

* * *

_..._

The spotlights are bright. . . too bright. The red indicator light over the camera is mesmerizing, and the figure behind it is little more than a shadow, backlit fingers that count down to one. . . and he should be talking now. His throat sticks, and Dean's eyes cut to the side, to the wings where faces watch him. . . familiar, but not the _right_ faces. Sam's absence is a bone-deep ache, and Castiel . . .

He can't think about that. He can't think about it and still function.

Unclenching his hands from fists, Dean raises his chin, setting his jaw, and stares into the indicator light, breathing out in a rush that seems to release with it his words and his anger.

"My name's Dean Winchester. I'm not here to tell you how to live your life. I'm not planning on killing any of you. I'm not an angel, or . . . hell, I'm nobody special." Sam would shoot him a bitchface from behind the stage for adlibbing this and downplaying himself, but. . . if they wanted Dean they were getting_ Dean_. Flaws and all. Cas would have argued even with an audience about whether or not Dean was special, given a pissy huff and gone into 'righteous man' crap. . .

The thought of Castiel twists something within Dean, and he drags his breath in raggedly.

"I'm here because there are things you need to know, about what's been happening."

. . .

* * *

"Does he know?" The polished wood of the table is cool beneath his cheek, his arms folded beneath him fever-hot. Castiel knows the only thing keeping him from hypothermic shivering is Anna's warmth at his side, his former Grace within the resurrected angel like a campfire he can hold his hands over for the illusion of warmth while the chill seeps into him slowly and inexorably.

It makes him think of Utah in winter, of hiking through desert and oasis, of wild beauty; ice in the upper reaches and sand below. That thought flows to the feeling Michael's power thrumming through the earth and the hell-tainted Grace of Asmodeus and Ba'el calling to him. Of curling into Dean's sleeping bag with him and watching his handsome features in the firelight.

Anna repeats the question, and Cas knows his rigid control is slipping and his thoughts are running away from him. It's getting harder to concentrate. Closing his eyes to the whorls of woodgrain beneath him, Cas takes a steadying breath and nods without lifting his head, his voice hoarse in confirmation. "He knows." He can hear Dean, the low rumble that indicates that he's still attempting to out-macho an angel and archangel as they give him hell recreationally for marrying into the celestial family, and he can hear Sam unhelpfully interjecting and enjoying it immensely. It shouldn't make him so _sad_ to hear his family having fun (however much his hunter might deny it), and yet all it does for Castiel is underscore the impermanence of it all. "But he doesn't want to believe it."

"You're hiding this from him." Anna murmurs, and her hand rests on his elbow. It's as if a live wire has been touched to his skin, an electrical current that jump-starts his thoughts again while searing painfully through his body, and he raises his head and meets Anna's eyes evenly. "Why, Castiel? If he _knows_, then. . ."

"I love him." Castiel says simply, his voice flat, and he raises and drops his shoulder in the faint shrug he had picked up in his humanity. "I don't want to bring him pain."

"But he could. . ."

"_No_, Anna." The force of his rebuttal draws attention to him, and Cas can _feel_ Dean's eyes on him just as he can feel when Anna moves her hand from his arm. Sam drops into a crouch beside his chair, and for some reason that puts Cas's teeth on edge, makes him feel as if his friend is treating him like a child, getting down on his level. "Everything okay, Cas?"

"The world is ending, the demon that I allowed to be king of Hell is stealing innocent souls to _keep_ that power, my home is _gone_, my siblings are losing the Grace I died to give them, my brother wants to let Lucifer into your mind on the off chance that they can defeat him there, Dean is going to endanger himself by becoming one of the top targets for every monster and demon who wants to sap the hope of humanity, and I am utterly_ useless_. What part of that leads you to believe that question is any less stupid now than it was at Jody's?"

"_Cas." _Dean's reproach is a slap to the face, silencing him, pointing out his rudeness to Sam. . . Sam, who has become his brother and his best friend outside of Dean. Suddenly, he just can't do it. He can't sit here under Sam's sympathetic scrutiny and everyone else's stares and Dean's concern and let them see him fall apart. The chair scrapes the floor loudly, and he pushes himself to his feet unsteadily, turning.

There is no door.

Castiel doesn't believe in Karma, but he does believe in irony. Grinding his teeth, he turns and finds Gabriel well within his 'personal space,' to his complete lack of surprise. "Running out so soon, bro? Here I thought there were things we needed to discuss."

Gabriel had _left_ them. Abandoned Heaven for thousands of years, paid no mind to the family he'd left behind. Balthazar had let Castiel think he was _dead_, turned his back on him and left him to grieve. Anna had chosen disobedience out of jealousy of the humans, knowing it would be Castiel left to pick up the pieces with her gone, and that he would be forced someday to hunt her. Inias had sided with Hester, had taken her part against Castiel once he left them, had felt her torture Cas in Heaven and watched him murder her in Iowa. Samandriel had witnessed Castiel's slide, had lived only because he didn't stand up to Castiel's bid for godhood, because he was so studiedly inoffensive and neutral that through multiple upheavals in Heaven no side considered him a threat to them. These are his siblings, and they have nothing to say to him for trying to leave, or for selfish choices. They are also, however, among the people that have most suffered because of his choices and because of his wars. They are also his _family_, and perhaps the most profound lesson Dean has taught him is that family is paramount. More than anything. . . they chose to _stay_.

"Gabriel, please don't." Castiel's words rasp out, painfully hoarse and quiet, blue eyes earnest.

"Yeah, like that's gonna work on me, Castiel." Gabriel returns fire, his snide voice playing over all of the syllables of Cas's name mockingly, and with a snap of his fingers Castiel is back at his chair at the center of the table, and Dean is suddenly scowling at Gabriel from the opposite chair. "Fun time's over. Anyone want to tell me why Castiel's gone from looking like he enthusiastically took a meat cleaver to his Grace, to being the celestial equivalent of ground chum slopping out of the bucket?"

"Poetic." Castiel deadpans bitterly, hunching in on himself in his chair now that his bid for freedom and cooperation have failed. He's struggling for coherence again, attempting to anchor himself on his pain, to use it to give him focus.

"Shut it, chum." Gabriel points a warning finger at Castiel. "Answers only, or I _make_ you shut up. Happy as I am that you've finally learned the fine art of sarcasm, you don't want to get into a battle of wits with me, little brother."

"Asmodeus." It's Dean that answers, and Castiel's gaze slides to his husband across the table, his jaw bunching, head ducked down as he draws in on himself completely. Dean's unrepentant about answering when Castiel would clearly wish otherwise: he _wants_ to drag this to the light, wants to Castiel to be _fixed_. "He went one on one with her."

"Wow, I knew you were getting reckless, didn't think you were_ stupid._" Gabriel's attention is still on Castiel, his eyes narrowed to see something neither Winchester can perceive.

"I had a plan. The plan succeeded. Considering the outcome . . ." Castiel's defensive response cuts short, his voice gone, and Gabriel blows imaginary gunsmoke from his finger.

"Warned you, bro. Plus, you'd just start talking about yourself an 'acceptable loss' and I'm pretty sure these two chuckleheads will flip out . . ."

"Damn right I will." Dean interjects, pushing himself to his feet, and with a glance and a flicked finger from an irritated archangel, he finds himself pressed back into his seat.

" . . . And I've seen enough of that from _both_ of them. Don't make me mute you too, Dean-o."

It should not have been surprising to anyone in the room that with a simple act of overt control over himself and over Dean, Castiel has gone from looking like a stiff breeze would knock him over, to full blown rebellion. Castiel lifts his head slowly and glares at Gabriel, knuckles white in his grip on the arms of his chair, his brow knitted in concentration, bloodshot eyes narrowed. Across the room Balthazar suddenly snorts indelicately, Anna sighs, and Inias and Samandriel look uncomfortably at each other. It's not hard from the context clues to figure out what's happening.

". . . Are you guys having a conversation _without_ us? Seriously, sitting right here." Dean grumbles, and Sam pulls up the chair beside his brother, shrugging when Dean turns to commiserate with the only other person in the room being left out of what was happening. "Frikkin' angels, man. . ."

"Stop pulping your brain trying to piss me off, Castiel, it ain't happening." Gabriel holds up a warning finger that Cas apparently ignores. The archangel may be able to silence him, trap him in the chair. . . hell, he could smite him where he sits, even. But short of knocking him entirely unconscious, he can't stop Castiel from _thinking_. Cas may never have Dean's particular skill when it comes to insults, but he_ has_ learned a few choice ways to express what he's thinking now.

"Is that even possible?" Inias asks apropos of nothing the Winchesters can tell, and Samandriel looks like he's _blushing_. "Anatomically, I don't think human vessels are capable of. . ."

"I think you've finally completely corrupted Cas." Sam mutters, leaning against Dean's shoulder, voice lowered. "Seriously, kinda wishing I could hear this."

"It's probably still funnier in Enochian anyway." Dean would be lying if he said he wasn't somewhat proud, though, based purely on the reactions he was seeing.

"Cassy, Cassy, Cassy. . . I didn't know you had it in you." Balthazar slides up onto the table, crossing his legs and resting his bottle on his knee, vastly amused. "I'm glad thorough excavation has managed to dislodge the stick up your ass. . ."

Sam's head thunks against the table as he groans, wishing he could unhear the drunken angel, and Dean covers his eyes with his hand, refusing to look at any of them. "What, you couldn't have said _that _telepathically?"

"Telepathic conversation often involves imagery. I'm glad he said it aloud, if he was going to say it at all." Samandriel's attempts to comfort Dean fail spectacularly.

"Yeah, not helping." Dean growls, and clears his throat. "As much fun as it is to watch you all _stare_ at each other, can we get back to the point where you _do_ something for him?"

This is a _distraction_, in much the way Dean's insults usually are, and there's a brief moment of panic when it fails to distract the one person who was most determined to keep the focus on Castiel. Cas's concentration lapses and he gasps silently, spine bowing as he arcs away from his chair before he slouches in place, panting, clinging to the chair arms to keep himself from slumping to the floor. Dean's on his feet again unrestrained by Gabriel's will this time, and bracing his hands on the table he goes _over_ it rather than wasting the time to circle the damn thing, a hand pressing to Cas's face and coming away wet with blood. "Goddamnit, quit fucking around and just _heal _him."

"Dean. . . If it were that easy I would have done it already." Anna drops to their side with a cloth in hand, cupping Cas's cheek gently. Castiel's hand snaps up, the motion abrupt and almost violent as his long fingers wrap around her wrist; she lets herself be halted. Castiel's lips are chapped when he raises his head again, his eyes fever-bright and bloodshot, watery, and the blood trickling from his nose is vibrant, drawing attention to skin bleached of color. Dean chokes back a curse at how corpse-like Cas is becoming, fingers linking with Castiel's and squeezing his free hand tightly, refusing to let him go.

"She can't. Healing is the first ability to go. . . you remember that, Dean, from Bobby's hospital room after I rebelled. . . when I was unable to help him walk again." Cas won't look at Dean, isn't meeting his eyes: instead, he drags in another rasping breath and continues, nodding to his sister. "You never returned back to Heaven when I brought you back, Anna. I understand . . . I couldn't have gone back, either. But you've been falling for a while. You need the power you still have to fight in this war."

Castiel's words husk past his lips, and he takes the cloth from his sister, dragging it over his own face rather than allow them to sit around coddling him, and his blue eyes fall on Balthazar next as he drops the bloodstained cloth onto the table beside his brother. "You have been _fighting_. You're rapidly depleting your Grace and it terrifies you. You sought to stockpile power, but _I_ took that from you in the war with Raphael." And now the angel was drowning in the bottom of a bottle, taking the route Dean had seen the Castiel of the future fall into: hopeless and broken, rapidly becoming mortal and escaping it how he can. Balthazar's lips quirk in a humorless left-hand smirk, and he raises his bottle to Cas mockingly, before tipping it back and taking a drink, denying neither his fear nor assuaging Castiel of his guilt for his part in ruining Balthazar's failsafe plans. "Inias, Samandriel. . . their grace is also diminishing now. They need it, for the war. Whatever else we are. . ." Castiel grimaces, and his self-correction is quiet, carefully controlled, and yet unmissed by anyone in the room. ". . . whatever else _they_ are. . . angels are by nature _designed_ to be the best weapon in a war with demons. They need to. . ."

"You're telling me we've got four angels and a friggin' _archangel _in this room with us and not a damn one of them can do a fucking thing to heal you?" There's skepticism in Dean's interruption, a healthy dose of anger, and beneath it all an edge of fear that Castiel can't help but recognize. Closing his eyes rather than look at Dean, Castiel brings their linked hands up, brushing a kiss across the hunter's battered knuckles, dry lips mapping familiar scars as his breath spills over Dean's skin, and Castiel does his best to ignore the others in the room the way that he cannot ignore Dean, even when he tries.

"It's possible that Gabriel could deal with the physical issues . . ."

"_Possible?"_

". . . but it is pointless to do so." Castiel opens his eyes, raising his head to look at Dean head-on, and the hunter's transfixed, trapped by the earnest plea on Cas's face. This isn't resignation, it's something else, something that Dean isn't _understanding;_ and it is infuriating. There are few things in the world Dean Winchester won't screw around with, and the fact that Castiel is withholding information or an option when he's _dying_ in front of Dean is enough that it's probably just as well they have an audience, a reason for Dean to keep his fear and frustration in check. "Gabriel cannot heal my Grace, Dean. That's a power beyond even him."

"Is he right?" Sam is standing again, both fists braced on the table and his hazel eyes narrowed and fixed on the archangel, who spreads his hands and leans back against the wall, one foot crossed over the other, slouched and comfortable, and completely unintimidated by the combined stares of the Winchesters.

"You know the drill, kids. When an angel dies, an angel _dies. _No matter how badass we are, you screw up our Grace or stick a sword through it, we're toast. That's it, sayonara, goodbye, we're _through_. Only time that's ever been bucked was when Dad intervened. Or Castiel there did, when he was trying to wear that hat, but _hey, _that's what ended us up here. Meanwhile, he ain't an angel anymore, Sammy-boy, and he ain't quite human either."

"Skip to the point." Dean growls, impatience overriding sense; and Gabriel's head turns towards him slowly, smoothly, leveling a dangerous, alien focus that they all have demonstrated, made all the more disconcerting coming from the most _human_ angel they've ever encountered. There are no smirks and quips for Dean now, and it's telling: regardless of his quips Gabriel is down to business, the 'Trickster' stripped away. It's times like this that Dean should be curtailing his issues, but he doesn't flinch, staring back at the expressive pointed face of the archangel.

"The_ point_ is that Castiel is right. _Technically_." Castiel's fingers laced through Dean's twitch reflexively, drawing his attention for the first time to the fact that they're still holding hands . . . and that flinch is a _tell_. Castiel never could beat Dean at poker. "He's gone tripping down the demon path, most of his Grace is long gone into the people in this room, and what's left apparently got another serious dose of demon and hellfire recently." There's _shame_ in Castiel's eyes and Dean wants to punch Gabriel, even knowing he'd just break his fist. "Oil and water. I'm just as likely to burn out what's left of him as I am to heal him, if I try. And even if I could wipe away how he's managed to fry his brainpan without danger, _Cas_ there is still dying."

There's something pointed in how he finally uses Castiel's adopted nickname, and even without telepathy there's clearly something being communicated in the stare between the fallen angel and the archangel. "It ain't _my_ help he needs. Not directly, at least. Considering how long you've been dealing with Castiel's messes by now though you should _know_ what powers up a Grace . . ."

"Gabriel. Stop." Each word is clipped, commanding, but Castiel has _never_ been Gabriel's superior, and he's too late to stop the thought from completing. Dean's eyes alight with understanding and he looks at Cas, hand tightening around his husband's, and suddenly he _gets_ it. This isn't about Castiel wanting to die, or pride driving him from accepting help . . .

He's terrified of the one thing that drove him farther over the deep end than the drugs ever could. And more than that, he's trying to spare _Dean_.

"Souls. Damnit. . . this is still about the _souls_."

. . .

* * *

Dean can feel sweat creeping down the back of his collar, soaking the fabric of his shirt collar. Hooking a finger into his tie he pulls it looser, and for some reason the action is comforting. . . there's something now about askew ties and second-hand suits. At least _he _has his tie on _frontwards_. "My brother and me. . . We've been fighting the things from your nightmares our entire lives. Used to be they'd sneak and fight from the shadows. But they're not hiding any more. You've _all_ seen what's going on, and we can't hide the truth from you anymore."

The next words are bitter on his tongue, an admission of defeat, and he stares into the indicator light as if he can apologize to each of them, every lost soul he'd failed. "We can't protect you by ourselves anymore. I'm sorry. If I could, I would save every one of you. But the best way I know how to do that is to tell you how to look after yourself. You're gonna lose people, and you're gonna lose hope, and you're gonna want someone to save you, and you're gonna want to just get down on your knees and pray. . ."

The words stick in his throat: how many times has he prayed, now, in the few short years since he _found_ faith? Since he'd found anyone worthy of it. Where would he have been without that? They have to _know_ someone's there, the way he has had Castiel.

"They may not be able to get to all of you, but there's still someone listening. Everything you've seen. . . the Vatican, Salt Lake, Detroit, Chicago, Mexico City, Shanghai. . . that's Lucifer and his bitches putting on a show, trying to make you afraid, trying to make you _give up_. This is still a _fight_, and we're _still in it_. We're not laying down and letting this happen. This is _our_ world, and it's up to us, to _people,_ to fight for it. These people behind me, they're what we've got in our corner. They're fighting this war. . . _we_ are fighting this war. . . but the only way we're pulling through this is if you out there start protecting yourselves, too."


	16. Chapter 16

The websites are up. Bobby and Jody are manning phones. All the paranormal groups they'd ever worked with are pitching in. The safehouses are set. The pastor from Sioux Falls, the priest from Storm Lake, every in-the-know person they had on their side is watching, the remaining Campbells and the scattered hunters. Everything they'd set in motion over months, it is coming together now.

And Dean Winchester, the quintessential con-man, will never be able to assume a false identity again: the entire world now knows his face and his name. Staring at the cameras, shoulders squared, he doesn't flinch from the thought. After all, he wasn't going anywhere without Cas, and there wasn't any hiding him. That ship had sailed for the fallen angel the second Asmodeus hit the screen wearing Claire's face.

There is one more thing he can do for him, though. The idea takes root, and then his mouth opens before he can second-guess it.

"Me, my brother Sam, and the angel Castiel . . . the guy you saw pictures of on TV as Jimmy Novak . . . we stopped the Apocalypse once before on our own." Behind him, Gabriel shuffles slightly, and he can feel the archangel's frown and ignores it. He isn't a dancing monkey, and they aren't going to make him keep to a script when he has one shot to do this for the people he loves, finally.

Sam Winchester is not going to go down in history and scripture as the frikkin' Anti-Christ if his big brother can help it. Castiel is not going to be remembered as a mass-murdering terrorist with a god complex. He doesn't care if they'd resigned themselves to it as the truth: he has _never_ accepted that he'll be the hero while they're vilified. Win or lose, sainted or reviled, they're doing this _together_.

"There's others out there, like us, who have been hunting and fighting. We need you now, so we can stop this again."

. . .

"_No_. I would be no better than Crowley, Dean, and I can't. . . _won't_. . . do that." Castiel's lips are white, his limbs shaking, teeth chattering, the taste of blood and bile clinging to his tongue. He has pressed himself backwards into his chair as if afraid he will slide out of it, as if the world that is spinning around him will buck him off of its skin, the sickening sensation that makes him think of the carousel, the tilt-a-whirl ride in the fairgrounds outside of their motel in San Antonio, children shrieking in fear and fun. He cannot imagine it being fun, to have the world yanked away from you. Why anyone would try to simulate this sensation for amusement is beyond him. "Not again."

"Nobody's suggesting . . ." Sam begins, and Dean cuts a look at his brother that silences him, furious and worried. Dean wasn't ruling out anything at this point. This is the Winchester Achilles' Heel, and they are all three vulnerable to it. There is _no_ limit to what they would do to save each other.

After all. The last time they had the power of millions of souls in their hands, Sam had been the one to throw it at Cas, to save Dean's life.

"It's not Plan A." Dean corrects him, gruffly, and Gabriel rolls his eyes behind them, leaning against the wall still, completely ignoring the fact that he's unwelcome in the room, that the others have been shuffled away for their private conversation to be _private. _

"It's not a plan at all. Sorry, kids, I'm not fighting a battle to keep Crowley from snatching up souls so you can take 'em."

"Then we go with frikkin' _Plan A_." Dean growls, his jaw bunched tight, and he takes a knee beside Cas's chair again, resting a hand over his husband's forehead as if he can heal the damaged mind beneath himself, his touch against the shockingly cold skin gentle even if his thoughts are violent and panicked.

"Plan A, which neither of you's gonna survive. _That_ plan A?" Sam looks away at Gabriel's words, hazel eyes troubled, and Dean knows his little brother's on the archangel's side in this. Searching Cas's face, his tight with pain and glazed with confusion, his grasp on his surroundings desperate and deliberate, his health rapidly slipping, he knows Cas isn't on his side either in this. That isn't going to stop him.

"I'm not losing him without a fight." Dean answers the archangel tersely, and glances over his shoulder at the pair of brothers watching him shrewdly. "You said you weren't sure if he'd survive you healing him. We start there. He'll make it. Then I'll go do whatever song and dance I gotta, and then we'll deal with his Grace." Dean needs to do his part, just in case he ended up killing himself in the plan to save Cas.

"Dean. . ." Cas has always been able to convey so much with a look and his name. Breathing it out now, it's a plea for Dean to let him go, to save himself, to go be the Righteous Man and do what Cas has believed the entire time Dean was made for. Sliding his hand across Cas's cheek, cupping the back of his neck, Dean surges forward and presses a kiss to Cas's lips briefly, abruptly, shutting him up.

"Don't." This may be the last words they speak to each other, and it may be the last time he ever locks eyes with Cas again, the last conversation entirely in a look. "You're getting through this. You know how I know that? God didn't drag you through all this crap and bring you back, shuffle you to Heaven too, so you could die before the final chapter, you got me? So you hang on."

Cas's look isn't agreement. It isn't assent to the plan. When he nods, finally, a bare twitch of his head, Dean knows it's because Cas expects this to kill _him _first, before Dean can endanger himself. Because if he dies before his Grace dissipates, there is still the chance that he will be there in Heaven to wait for Dean. Because for once, a suicidal act is better than letting things play out over time.

Dean leaves his hand clamped onto Cas's shoulder when he rises, the pain of it over the bite of the ghoul attack only days before unknowingly helping Cas focus on _something. _Cas turns his head slightly, tucking his chin so he can press a kiss to Dean's fingers, breaking their stare, and they don't need sweeping pronouncements of love or tearful goodbyes. It's not who they are. It never has been, in their years of bizarre courtship and, until recent months, undeclared love.

Gabriel blinks slowly, head cocking to the side slightly as if he's listening to something they cannot hear, his eyes fixed on Dean's back until he turns abruptly to face the archangel. It takes Gabriel by surprise, when he understands: Dean Winchester is _praying_. This is a Hail Mary play in every sense of the word and whatever his demeanor, the elder Winchester knows it as much as they do. Stone faced or not, he's praying to God, to Gabriel, and even to Castiel, thoughts frantic.

It took a long time and a couple of Apocalypses for Dean to find faith. But he's got it now, fragile as it may be in this moment. And maybe, just maybe, there's a chance he'll be rewarded for it at last. It's what decides Gabriel into the plan, finally, and perhaps that is what it was meant to do. Gabriel doesn't mention the prayers. And Cas is too far gone to pick up anything, even if he could still hear them.

"You may not wanna be here for this." Gabriel finally offers Dean as he pushes away from the wall with an eye roll that is largely affectation, raising a hand that lingers over Castiel's forehead but hesitates to touch as Castiel watches Gabriel silently. The olive branch comment is swatted away firmly, Dean's voice a hoarse rumble.

"I'm not leaving him."

Gabriel glances at Sam, who shrugs slightly as if to say 'where else would I go?' His brother and his brother-in-law are in this. His _family_. There's nowhere else he wants to be, no matter how rough it gets or what the outcome. Gabriel's exasperated sigh blows an errant strand of hair out of his eyes, and he turns his gaze back to Castiel as if to commiserate about stubborn humans.

Though come to think of it Cas, with his bloodshot blue eyes flitting back to Dean as if to make sure his husband was the last thing he saw, was one of them.

"Alrighty then. Bro, if you don't live through this, go punch Mikey in the face for me, wouldja?"

Before he can answer, before he can be distracted away from his reverential gaze, Gabriel touches two fingertips to Castiel's forehead. Hands clenching convulsively on the chair, Castiel's head snaps back, blue eyes wide and agonized beneath Gabriel's touch, and light pours from him, his lips parting on a silent scream.

This doesn't look like healing. It looks like _smiting_.

Oil and water, Gabriel had said, of the heavenly might of the archangel and the demonic power Castiel had embraced to take on Asmodeus. Foul as it was, as quickly as he tried to release it, only that lingering strength could have kept Cas on his feet with all of his injuries, a thread of binding around the tatters of his already mangled Grace. Even discounting their role as natural enemies, there is a reason angels do not attempt to heal demons. Twice now, Castiel has ripped every iota of Heaven out of himself that he could spare, and three times, of his own free will, Castiel has tapped into the power of Hell to protect the Winchesters.

Dean was hoping for a miracle. He _wasn't _exactly expecting the feedback to literally knock him on his ass though. The white-out of light and wave of force slams into Dean, knocking him away from Cas's side, and when a hand reaches down to pull him to standing he's still blinking the after-image out of his eyes and getting his feet beneath him, lurching back towards Cas, before what he's seeing really settles in.

The world seems to fall out from underneath Dean, and he can't _breathe_.

Castiel has slumped lifelessly from the chair and is braced by a kneeling archangel, Gabriel's hands are fisted into the back of Cas's flannel shirt and his eyes are closed, an uncharacteristic look of concentration on his usually comically animated face. Sam has shoved himself to his feet again and wavers for a moment as he decides which direction to go, towards Dean or towards Cas, and his voice is a warning that Dean only understands once he registers the face of the person who pulled him upright, who is keeping him from approaching his husband. Kara-the-Valkyrie's grip on his forearm is tight, her face registers none of the humor and emotion he saw earlier in the evening as she interposes herself between Dean and the others, and her presence in the room . . .

She is one of the death goddesses who are playing chaperone to _Reapers_. Her return to Gabriel's little pocket reality isn't coincidence. . . it's _business_. And that means a Reaper is. . .

"You are not fucking taking him. Do you understand me." Dean crowds closer to Kara, his lips drawn back in a snarl, and he might not be able to _see_ the Reaper with her, but he can feel it in the room with him; that trace of _Cas_ that had been left with him in healing, in resurrections, is enough to warn him but not enough to let him see Reapers as Cas can. "Sam, get to Cas. We're getting the hell out of here."

"Dean. . ." Sam begins, but the blonde is in his way, blocking his view, and while he can hear his brother, knows he's kneeling next to Cas and Gabriel, he can't see them.

"You can't outrun death, Dean." Kara's voice is not unkind, but her grip on his arm doesn't falter. "As I understand it, Castiel was a warrior. He wouldn't want to remain trapped in his body, a shell, unable to fight. I have seen his kind on to Valhalla. . ."

"He ain't going to Valhalla and you don't know shit about him, lady. And if you talk about him in the past tense again I am going to punch you in the fucking nose." This isn't rational, and it isn't reasonable, and it's beyond desperate, but he needs Cas, or Cas's body, if he's going to make a deal. And he _will_ make a deal, do whatever it takes. He'll find something, do _something_. . .

"What're you doing?" Sam's tense question isn't directed towards Dean, and he can't _see_ what's happening, but he can see a look of faint consternation pass over the Valkyrie's face, and she turns her head to look at the others.

The Colt is in his hands instantly. Five creatures it wouldn't kill, Lucifer had said. Gabriel might be one of them by default, if Lucifer was, but he was willing to bet Valkyries could be capped with it. He doesn't get the chance to test that theory. Kara releases him suddenly, shifting aside, and Dean can see them again.

"Loki?" Kara asks, her gray eyes narrowed in question and concern, and her hands clench into fists at her sides as Dean edges past her and throws himself down across from Sam, at Gabriel and Cas's side, his hand immediately seeking out the pulse on Cas's wrist, fingers sliding over cold, clammy skin, wiped clean in healing of the sigils he had cut into his flesh to lure in Asmodeus. Beneath his hand, Castiel's heartbeat seems erratic and weak, but it is _there_. "Loki, what are you doing?"

"Gabriel. My _name_ is _Gabriel, _Kara. And I'm doing what I do best . . . Better than Lucy and Mikey who wanted to stick with the game rules, or Raph who never had a friggin' original thought in his head." The Trickster's lips curl into his smirk, cocky and wicked. For a moment the shadows around him seem to deepen, distinct in the impression of massive wings unfurling. Instinctively, Sam seems to edge back from one on his knees, shooting a wide-eyed look at Dean. "I'm _cheating_, blondie."

Between one moment and the next, Castiel's heartbeat _stops. _Dean's throat tightens impossibly, and he snaps his gaze up to Gabriel, whose open eyes look directly into his as he loosens his grip on Castiel. The shadows have resettled, and Sam rubs a hand over his arm absently, as if trying to banish the prickle of electricity clinging to their skin.

"What did you _do . . . _?" Sam's voice is hushed, a deathbed whisper, and Gabriel dumps Cas into Dean's arms unceremoniously. Dean accepts the weight reflexively, numbly, rather than let Cas slump to the floor, and he is dead weight. Cas is a _body, _stiff and unresponsive as any corpse he's hauled, rather than the man he loves. It is not the first time in his life that Dean Winchester has been struck silent by grief.

"Probably my last dumbass act as an 'agent of fate.' Time control, baby." Gabriel's eyebrows waggle at Sam, whose face crumples into a scowl, angry at the reminder of his skill with _that_ particular angelic gift, and confused by the vague answer. Shoving himself to his feet, Gabriel slaps his hand against Dean's back too-hard, jolting the hunter and the fallen angel in his arms forward, rocking him in his place. Dean doesn't respond, but the angel's words are filtering into his mind, sparking hope again. Rolling his eyes, Gabriel blows out a dramatic sigh. "He isn't _dead_, Dean-o. Not _yet_ at least. But he's getting there. I hit the pause button, but I can't keep that going indefinitely. You're still gonna kill yourselves trying what you're planning, and I figure I'm now running on pagan-power alone. . . which means no redos, no takebacks, and I ain't healing anyone, all those things that're pretty much "heaven-sent" only . . . and it means I frikkin' _own_ your ass right now."

"Are you blackmailing us. . .?" Sam pushes himself to his feet, looming head-and-shoulders above Gabriel. To the side, Kara folds her muscular arms beneath her breasts and arches an eyebrow appraisingly at Sam once more, content for the moment to wait and see what was happening. A couple thousand years knowing 'Loki's' capabilities probably contributed to her general unconcern.

Gabriel smirks up at Sam, and holds his hands out palm-up, with a weighing motion. "You say blackmail, I say making sure loverboy here doesn't do something stupid like think about taking my _dying brother_ on a road trip to find a frikkin' _demon _to deal with instead of_ waiting on me." _There's a bite to Gabriel's words that draws Dean's head up, and he tightens his arms around Castiel, cradling him in his lap and staring up at the half-pint archangel, unconsciously rubbing his hand up and down Cas's arm as if warming him up will make his heart beat again, his other hand still clenched around the Colt with his arm locked around his husband, prepared to defend Cas if he had to.

"What do you want?" It doesn't cross Dean's mind to deny that he'd had the thought. It doesn't cross his mind to try and say no. Sam's mouth snaps closed on a word, and he turns his full attention on his brother, who shrugs slightly under the scrutiny, his voice hoarse as he forces the words out. "We're here to fight this with them, Sammy, not against them. We were gonna play ball anyway, and now Cas. . ."

This is his one shot at saving Castiel. He's taking it. Sam doesn't seem to need him to finish. Letting his breath out, the younger Winchester deflates, shaking his head slightly. This is Dean's decision. It has to be. "Okay."

"Good. Glad we're all on the same page now. So hey, let's go save everyone or die trying. Alright, first, the Yeti." Gabriel's grin is in place, but his eyes are glittering darkly, intelligent and cunning, and Dean's protective instinct has _always_ centered on his brother. Dean shifts on the floor to take part of Castiel's weight against his bent leg, freeing his gun hand in case he needs it, and it feels like a betrayal, like Gabriel is forcing him to choose between them. "_You_, we're dangling in front of Lucy. There's some prep work we're gonna need, some sigils that probably won't do a damn thing to protect you, but hey they won't hurt. . . much."

"Do we need tostrip him for these sigils?" Kara offers helpfully, and Sam stiffens, eyes darting towards the goddess, and Gabriel smirks. "Too eager, Kara, you're gonna scare him off. Don't you have corpses to go de-soul?"

"No." Kara doesn't pout, she's too busy leering. "None of them are believers, so I'm _babysitting_. The Reaper is very boring, and she has very little interest in the _stories_ of them."

"Hi, Tessa." Dean offers flatly without looking away from Sam, and it wins a rich, rolling laugh out of Kara and no correction. Because hey. Of all the Reapers in all the towns in all the world, of _course_ Cas gets the same one he did. He has every intention of cheating her of this hunter, too. His arm tightens around Cas, his angel's face tucked against his chest, and it could feel like any of the hundreds of times now that Cas has fallen asleep against him, but he can't delude himself with Castiel so still.

"Yeah, well, you're a bit too fond of stories, cupcake. Too much time telling tall tales with the 'Heroes.' Take your Reaper and skedaddle. You got your job, we got ours, but I promise I'll ring as soon as there's things to kill. Wouldn't want you girls getting _too_ bored."

"I know. It's why we follow you now." Kara flashes Gabriel one last grin, winks at Sam, and then pauses before looking at Dean, tucking one of the streaked red curls behind her ear, a girlish gesture that seems odd on such a forceful creature, and her words are sympathetic. "It would not be a bad death, you know. If it comes to it, please understand that. Once she takes him on, he will be lost to you only for a little while. . . .The best stories, they don't truly_ end_, they simply change scenery."

_If_ Dean lets Cas go, before his Grace dies within him. All or nothing. He doesn't respond, and she doesn't expect him to.

Dean listens as Gabriel begins talking to Sam, but with their eyes off of him and the Reaper and Valkyrie disappearing from the room, he takes the moment to slowly release his hold on Cas, relaxing the bunched muscles of his arms and gently laying Castiel out, head pillowed on Dean's thigh as he tucks away the Colt. Cas's eyes are shut tight, crow's feet furrowing the delicate skin beside his eyes as they always do when he has a headache, or is controlling his reaction to pain. Smoothing his thumb over the skin, Dean is unable to ease that pain away this time. Cas is frozen in it, just at the edge of death, lips parted on a breath that doesn't release.

Reaching for Cas's discarded coat, Dean folds it and tucks it carefully beneath Castiel's head as a makeshift pillow, before brushing a chaste, tender kiss over Cas's chapped lips. "You hang in there, angel. You hear me? I'll be back, I just need you to. . . I need _you_. You gotta stick around." Running his fingers through Cas's shock of dark hair one last time, Dean steels himself and unfolds from his spot on the floor. Shoulders squared, the forbidding look he fixes on Gabriel and Sam dares them to say a word about any of what they'd seen. "You going to be okay with this plan, Sam?"

Sam knows to leave well enough alone, but he glances at Cas before nodding to Dean, resolved. "Yeah. . . I mean. . . this is it, right? _We're _it." Sam will probably always blame himself for Lucifer's escape. . . and even now, when Castiel has been shouldering the burden for Asmodeus springing him from the Cage again, Sam still feels responsible. Castiel would never have learned its weaknesses if he hadn't been trying to save _Sam._ "_You_ gonna be okay? I mean, this is us going public, Dean. . ."

"Everyone else is doing it, so hey. Why not." Dean's half-assed attempt at sarcasm is flat and humorless and bleak, but when Sam reaches a hand towards his arm he shakes his head minutely and Sam frowns, withdrawing before he can touch Dean. "So, 'Gabby,' how're we doing this?"

"Hard and fast. I want them busy looking at you while we're laying the bait with your brother. We move Sam to another location, set the ball rolling while you and I are on-stage. Let him think you and Sam fell out again, or that Sam's trying something on his own." Gabriel's apparently summoned the rest of the angels back in, because Balthazar flings open a newly appeared door dramatically, now carrying with him a bottle of scotch, while Anna frowns at his back. Inias and Samandriel trail in behind her, but it's Balthazar that notices Cas first, coming to a dead stop and blocking the door.

"Cassy?" The angel's eyes snap to Gabriel's, anger and grief chasing across his face before he manages to control it, settling on something that Sam supposes is meant to look like apathy, but falls short in his drunken state.

"He's alive. Ish." Gabriel defends, rolling his eyes. "But hey, you worry so much, you'll be glad to know you're babysitting. We're going to. . ."

"No." Dean interrupts, more forcefully than he intended. Anna rests a hand on Balthazar's shoulder as she steps up beside him, but Dean turns back to Gabriel, standing beside Castiel's prone form protectively. "You said it yourself. _Everyone_ has wanted Cas dead 'cept me and Sam. You've had dozens of people in here, they know how to get back. I mean. . . what've we got here, an angel that Cas _killed_. . ."

"And brought back." Balthazar interjects as he pulls away from Anna and moves past the group of them to perch once again on the table, bracing a hand against the surface to keep himself steady.

"Um. . . which you also resent him for now that you're falling." Sam counters, and Balthazar freezes momentarily, before shrugging one shoulder and knocking back another swill of the liquor. "Touché."

". . . an angel that Cas hunted, and then eventually turned over to Heaven, which got _her_ screwy and then killed." Dean continues undeterred by the others speaking, gesturing at Anna, who frowns faintly but doesn't argue the point as Dean barrels on. ". . . one who I _remember_ from Storm Lake with frikkin' _Hester_, and don't even get me started on that bitch. . .

"I don't want Castiel dead." The last of the angels raises his hand slightly before dropping it, like the nervous student in class as he interrupts. "I never have. I can stay and help Balthazar. . ." Samandriel's earnest and painfully young-looking, and though Dean knows better than to judge an angel by its vessel he eyes the kid scrutinizingly for the half-second Gabriel manages to keep his mouth shut.

"Great. Do I need to get on the horn, call for seven dwarves and build a bed of flowers in the woods for Sleeping Beauty here, too, or can we. . .?"

"That's Snow White." Sam corrects automatically, and the head of every conscious angel in the room turns at once like a freaky, heavenly Stepford moment of synchronicity that leaves him flustered. ". . . Sleeping Beauty was thorns and a dragon."

"Good to know!" Gabriel huffs, trying to chase them into action, but Dean is looking at his little brother, the overgrown puppy of a hunter that still knew all the crap fairytales Dean never really took interest in. If this _were_ a 'story,' as Kara had said, or a fairytale as Gabriel were implying, that last kiss would have woken Cas up . . . and this makes him Prince Charming, which means _Cas_ is the Princess . Which could be great to use in arguments against him, but Cas needs to live first for Dean to be able to heckle him, win that fondly exasperated eye roll and quiet huff of laughter out of him.

And Sammy. . . Sammy believed in all the romance crap Dean had always sucked at, looked for a silver lining even in a shitstorm, and was backing his play without question, trying to make sure his brother could get his happily ever after, to the point that Sam, the Winchester brother who had to this point been the one with any ability to settle down long-term, hadn't had anyone significant in his life in. . . a damned long time. His little brother who was about to take on the Devil. . . _again_. . . to try and save everyone else, even knowing it might be the end of him.

"Give us five minutes." Dean tells Gabriel evenly. If Gabriel makes an issue out of it, Dean doesn't pay attention. He stands stiffly before his brother until all of the angels disappear, and then sinks to the floor beside Cas, rubbing a hand over his jaw and reaching out for Cas's hand with the other absently, his attention on Sam. "I don't like this, Sammy. Don't like any plan that involves them splitting the three of us up."

Sam sighs, and there's something inherently awkward about Sam Winchester dropping himself to a seated position on the floor, like he's still a teenaged kid whose arms and legs got longer than he knows how to deal with all of a sudden. He's all elbows and knees the second he has to compact that lengthy frame, and Dean feels a pang for the kid his brother used to be. "Of course you don't, Dean. Neither do I, but. . ." Sam shrugs, and runs a hand through hair that is growing too-long and shaggy again, and maybe Dean should have had Jody give _Sam_ a haircut for his wedding, not Cas. It takes Sam a second to articulate his words, each chosen carefully, time that Dean spends with his thumb absently rubbing circles over the palm of Cas's hand while they both stare at the gesture without really tracking it. "It's kind of as much our plan as it is Gabriel's, Dean. I mean, you came up with the message. We've been talking about the vessel connection since Asmodeus got out. And Cas did a lot of the legwork for his journal."

"I still don't like it." Dean has clung to his small family, thrown everything he has into protecting it, and now he has to trust others to guard Castiel in his stead, a creature millions of years old who wouldn't need _protecting_ at all before he met Dean, and he has to let his brother play bait while running the risk that he wouldn't be able to pull him out of harm's way. It's done, though. It's the plan, and he's going with it. They both know it, and repeating himself won't get them anywhere. Gently laying Cas's hand down, Dean looks around them and shifts position, tucking his hands under Cas's shoulders. "Help me get him off the floor? I just see some jackass tripping over him down here and hurting him after we just got him patched up."

They lay Cas out across the table, the coat beneath his head again. Sam pats himself down, dragging out a stub of chalk out of his pocket before Dean even has the chance to consider it, adorning Cas's impromptu bed with probably redundant protection against demons. Dean watches him do it for a moment, before stepping into Sam and hauling his brother down into a hug that Sam returns with equal force and no hesitation. It's a moment before he holds his brother at arm's length, fingers tight on Dean's shoulder, and jostles him once for emphasis. "Don't cuss on television."

"No promises. Don't kill Lucy 'til I get a few shots in."

"See what I can do. Don't . . . " Sam turns his head and glances at Cas, face twisting slightly as he tries not to say anything. Dean gets it. His little brother's afraid the first thing Dean's going to do when he gets back is die and take Cas with him. Dean's _been_ the brother left behind before. He doesn't want that for Sam. But they can't think about it right now. So instead he clears his throat and offers a wane quirk of his lips. "Team Free Will, huh? Mr. Comatose will be pissed about missing anything, but he's gone fighting without us before so. . ." Dean shrugs, and then pours every ounce of conviction he can muster into his words and his steady gaze, catching Sam's eyes. "We'll pull through. All of us. Just keep your head in the hunt."

The scraping of a chair is sign enough that their time is up, as Balthazar throws himself down into the seat and kicks his feet up on the table beside his brother's still body, flipping his angelic blade in his hand surprisingly deftly considering he smells like a distillery. Samandriel doesn't seem to know if he should sit or stand, and Anna and Inias have been chosen for Sam.

Gabriel's grin creases his cheeks, making his hazel eyes spark with mischief, his eyebrows waggling suggestively. "Are you ready for your close-up, Mr. Winchester?"

. . .

It's funny. All the rest of this, Dean's been too upset to be really nervous, or even to care if he cussed on TV like Sam warned him not to. He's had things to say just to keep people alive. It's no different than when he has to shove some civilian to the side with instructions, to get to a monster just. . . a bit bigger and a bit more impersonal. This. . . this part is _distinctly _personal. Dean doesn't have to reach for it, that simmering anger that had made Cas look at him like a revelation, like God's gift to the world. Anger he has in spades, and he has a few choice words to spare as long as he's here. Ignoring Gabriel and the archangel's little entourage at his back, ignoring the camera man in front of him, he fixes on that red indicator and imagines it all as wavelengths of light. Imagines that sinister pinprick of blood red is Lucifer looking out at him, and he stares Lucifer right in the goddamned face, his words a threatening rumble.

"Oh, and Lucy. . . I know you're listening. We're not taking this lying down. We're free people with free will, and you ain't taking that from us without a fight. I told you once before. . . get your own goddamn planet to fight on. This one's _ours_."

Across the world, augmented by the powers of an archangel pushing him into every household, translating him into all languages, Dean Winchester's teeth flash in a grin, threatening and mocking, green eyes vibrant in the bright stage lights, not an ounce of fear left in him for the end of the world, determination in every line of his lean body.

"We already took out your bitch of a sister. _You're_ next."

The red light blinks once and shuts off. The lights off-stage rise, revealing the rest of the newroom once again, and from across the room, beside the producer's station, a slow clap rings out mockingly.

"That was beautiful, mate. I'm all aquiver. I'd throw my knickers at the stage for you right now if I had any." Crowley's lips curl into a slow, wicked smirk, and he licks his lips, glancing from the archangel behind Dean, to the smoldering goddess taking a step closer to the edge of the stage, to the various deities and entities who had every reason to kill him, and he doesn't flinch.

Reaching behind him, Dean fists a hand into Gabriel's jacket in an attempt to keep him from disappearing across the room, instinctively attempting to anchor the archangel who was the only thing keeping Castiel alive; and the fury and power pouring through him is painful to be _near_, washing over Dean's skin like electric shock, but he doesn't let go.

Crowley winks directly at the angel whose brothers and sisters he had been torturing and murdering in war, and spreads his hands. "Always with the angels, Dean. You certainly do have a type. Now, what was I saying? Oh yes. Parlay. It's time for our next show. 'Let's Make a Deal.'"


	17. Chapter 17

At Dean's back, the archangel Gabriel is simmering with power and fury that seems barely contained in his diminutive vessel, a sneer pulling his lips back in a twisted version of his Trickster's smile. At his side, the goddess Kali has begun literally smoldering, her dark eyes alight with a sinister spark, heat shimmering as it rises off her skin. The three sisters to the left, with their beady eyes and beak-like noses, seem to have literally developed claws. Dean can feel the others spreading out around him, each footstep of an old Celtic god making the floor seem to shake, and he can hear the Russian's knuckles pop as he grips his weapon.

Through it all, the current King of Hell smirks up at Dean from yards away, leaning on a cane that was entirely a decorative prop and pretentious affectation, completely unconcerned and ignoring the others.

Dean should feel like the safest mortal in the world, the Colt in his hands, surrounded by bloodthirsty gods to whom his death now would be a PR faux pas, if nothing else. In the end, Crowley is still an upjumped Crossroads demon, and he's dealt with his fair share of them, to the point where he and his brother and his angel have cultivated a dangerously casual disregard for creatures that once scared the everloving crap out of them.

And yet, despite his position of apparent strength, Dean's heart is jackhammering in his chest, and he can feel a cold sweat take him.

"Oh how the mighty have fallen. Dean Winchester, mouthpiece to a sodding archangel." Tapping a fingertip to his chin, hand curled around the knob end of his cane, he affects a mockingly thoughtful expression. "Don't I remember a bit of a kerfuffle about that last time?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean can see Gabriel's hand rising, fingers poised to snap, and he unfists his grip on Gabriel's jacket and slaps down over the archangel's hand, trying to stop the motion. He doesn't try to keep his voice down—Crowley would hear him anyway—he's just glad that it comes out steady and angry. "If he's here he has leverage."

"Ah, and there it is. Never as dumb as he looks, this one. But since he looks like a plastic Ken doll. . ."

"I am tired of your voice." Kali's words are flat, her face beautiful and cold and expressionless, and Dean's pretty sure he can't get away with manhandling her back the way Gabriel hasn't smote him yet for trying to hold him back.

"And yet, _I _never find myself tiring of it. It's a mystery." Crowley's eyes slide to the side, meeting Gabriel's behind Dean's arm, and he drops the cane back his side, pointing at him. "And this one, _he's_ always bloody eager to chat, isn't he? Shame we've never had a proper sit-down before. . ."

"You mean, a shame you scampered for cover like a cockroach when the lights come on any time I showed up for one of your parties? I was starting to feel _unloved._" Gabriel is quite suddenly _not_ where Dean left him, blinking out of existence in one place and reappearing at the demon's side already in full smartass mode, Crowley's cane in his hand, spinning it idly and sneering as Crowley takes an inadvertent step back. Dean's seen his share of angels, and of archangels. To say overexposure to them had made them lose a bit of their shine for him would be an understatement of the grandest proportions. . . and maybe moreso with Gabriel, whom he still found himself thinking of like a Trickster, a pest. Dangerous and cunning, but just a nuisance he had originally set out to exterminate with a wooden stake.

It's easy to forget that he began his existence as one of Heaven's four most dangerous weapons, and then became the adversary and mischief-maker in multiple religions on a _lark, _playing with their gods, teasing them, letting them think they'd killed him and moving on to the next pantheon, or coming back to play again.

Dean's not sure how much of Gabriel's power is burning off with Heaven closing the gates, or his stunt sustaining time control on Cas, though. He finds himself at the edge of the stage before he realizes it, his feet moving without conscious thought. Stopping himself, forcing himself to think rather than react, he turns slightly and catches Kali's unnervingly inhuman stare, holding a hand up to stop her from following Gabriel too. The archangel is the best distraction _anyone_ could wish for, and this is his only chance to speak without being overheard by Crowley. His voice is low, willing Gabriel's unofficial second in command to listen to him, his voice a hissed whisper. "He's fucking with us. We gotta check on our people; he's up to something."

"You're right. That _is _a shame." Gabriel continues, his high, sharp game-announcer's jeer ringing out as Dean drops down from the stage without waiting for Kali's response, thumbing open the buttons of his suit jacket to increase his range of motion, drawing the Colt and keeping it aimed at Crowley. "You know what else would be a shame?" The studio lights pop, showering sparks down over them all, throwing out the wide shadowed expanse of Gabriel's wings unfolding impressively, and Dean is pretty sure there's a camera rolling somewhere in this station, the reporters too stubborn and opportunistic to leave entirely when they can get exclusive footage of something awesome, literally inspiring of awe, and on their side.

The shattering of glass and the smell of burning metal brings an end to whatever broadcast is going on, Gabriel's unbridled hatred enough that Dean was pretty sure New York City just went into full on blackout, a storm breaking that even within the sound shielded studio Dean could hear in a rumble of thunder. With a jerk of his head, Dean directs the camera man and a wide-eyed, terrified producer to vamoose. They'd seen enough, shown enough. There are fewer gods on the stage, too, and Dean can only hope that means Kali heeded his warning and sent them on to check on the others, that the gods weren't so full of themselves that they'd ignore a smart order just because it came from a human.

"It would be 'a shame' if you stomped this cockroach, as we all know you could, and my boys lost patience waiting on me to call them off. That would only mean the death of . . . oh, the angel I had in cold storage, the thunderbird I picked up in Arizona, what's left of a Valkyrie they found in Minnesota, and a handful of _fairies_ that for some reason think well of you . . . no accounting for taste, I suppose. . ." Somehow, Dean _knows_ what's coming next; he's dreaded it since Crowley smirked at him. There are only three people Crowley would grab to give him leverage over Dean, and the one of them Crowley would most like to hurt is currently vulnerable . . . and a target that also would work against Gabriel.

". . . And I won't be able to tell them to let up on the two angels dying to protect darling newlywed Castiel in Kansas." Crowley tilts his head slightly to look at Dean past Gabriel. "Mazel tov, by the way, on picking up my sloppy seconds."

This time it's Gabriel who holds Dean back, extending one arm and shooting him a warning glare. Dean's line of work, turning fear to anger has never been a problem, and Crowley is threatening Cas to get to him, insulting Cas to get to him. And damn it all, _it_ _gets to him_. He was never the one that wanted to deal with Crowley in this; that was Cas, and instead of sounding reasonable all Dean could hear of it _then _was that Cas wanted to work with the guy he'd turned his back on them because of, who he'd sided with against the Winchesters.

"Down, boy."

Crowley rolls his eyes, adopting a bored tone. "Oh, don't get your knickers twisted, kitten._ Metaphorically_, of course. He's been grabbing ankle for someone or another metaphorically since the bloody Proterozoic era; you're just the latest in a line." Raising his voice, Crowley looks to Gabriel again. "None of which will _matter_, of course, in a few minutes. You really should look to your friends, mate. All those unsavory sorts that flocked to you, you should have known at least _one _of them would want to curry favor in Hell. How long do you think the people you left there can hold off all of my demons? How long have they already been there?" Tipping his wrist, he makes a show of tapping his watch next to his ear. "I can never tell if this is working right after Hell. No saying how long they've been under attack already. . . Not to mention, I have it on good authority from _my_ spies that _Lucifer's_ spies are under the impression you have the Moose hidden there as well."

"And how'd they _get_ that impression, you son of a bitch?" Dean's finger is tight on the trigger, and he wants to _leave_. He wants to put a bullet between Crowley's and deal once and for all with the threat that just kept _getting away with it_, kept pulling all the right strings to secure himself power, at the expense of the people Dean loves; and then he wants to get back to them, gather up his brother and his angel and get them the fuck out of harm's way.

Crowley spreads his hands theatrically, not bothering to deny Dean's suspicions. "Because I told them that to lure the Devil in, of course. Lawrence bloody Kansas isn't exactly where I would choose to wage a war, but it worked for you imbeciles last time. I like the symmetry, and it was convenient."

"I'm leaning more and more towards the old fallback. Kill you all. . ." Gabriel has a dangerous glimmer in his hazel eyes, and Crowley smirks in challenge. "Let God sort us out? Your Daddy doesn't really do much sorting any more, though, does he? This is a waste of time, which is a luxury you don't have. We have business to attend to; I want to live. I want Hell. _You_ need _me_ to _have_ Hell. And you're sentimentally attached to several things which are now in my possession. You could have an entire army at your back for the low, low cost of something you don't particularly want anyway, and I'll call off my dogs."

Gabriel's features are tight, the mask of humor gone as though it never existed, and Dean knows that Crowley _has_ him. This is what Dean only discovered once Gabriel crammed a DVD in his hands and planted himself in front of Lucifer: the lengths he would go to in order to save his own self-created family. He conquered his own fears, revealed himself by stepping out of his self-imposed 'witness protection,' overcame his hesitance to raise a hand to Lucifer and to defy Michael, even his beliefs about fate and God's plan. . . to save a handful of creatures who thought ill of him, and even now were apparently still treacherously giving him away to his enemy after he had literally died for them.

Crowley knows he's won too. He knew it when he walked in the door without a hoard of demons at his back. He's had time enough to feel out his enemy's priorities: who only knew how many years their war had been going on, when put into the perspective of the time differences between Hell and Heaven and Earth.

"Hey, Dean-o. Do me a favor." Gabriel swings his attention to Dean without stepping back from Crowley as he tosses the demon back his cane, raising his hand with fingers poised to snap. "See how much of Crowley's trash you can take out before he's done negotiating a deal to save his own ass."

The click of Gabriel's fingers snaps Dean halfway across America before he can respond . . . but not before he can see Crowley's spike of annoyance, or Gabriel's bared-tooth grin. The demon and angel might become uneasy allies in this war, but they would never be anything but enemies; and by sending Dean on to where Dean _needed_ to be, Gabriel had made sure Crowley could force no deals that were binding to what the Winchesters would do. They aren't a _part_ of Gabriel's army.

And that means he can try and kill every black-eyed son of a bitch in this joint for getting anywhere near Cas.

It's been over a year now since the last time Cas winged Dean anywhere, back when he was still sneaking around trying to hide his deal with Crowley, and the abrupt shift back onto the Angel Express throws Dean off-balance.

And maybe they are God's favorite misfits, because that stumbling moment saves his life.

. . .

"Don't be afraid."

Last time a pretty girl said that to Sam Winchester, he was all knees and elbows and floppy hair, thin as a rake because he hadn't filled out into his increasing height, in a cold sweat and cursing silently because Dean made himself sound so _suave_ when he told the story of _his_ first time, whereas Sam was a stuttering mess and couldn't even unhook her bra.

The last time Anna had cautioned against being afraid of _her_, it was to Ruby, promising she wasn't like the other angels. . . and then she went back in time to murder Mary Winchester just to keep Sam from being born. Just as callously as any of the other angels.

And hell, the last time an angel had said those words exact words to him, it was Lucifer, and that hadn't exactly been a picnic.

So, yeah. To hell with them all. He was afraid, but he was handling it.

"You realize telling people that never actually works, right?" Sam chuffs quietly, rocking forward to rest his arms on his knees, hands hanging limply as he watches others do the work. Some part of Sam has always thought it was Dean who was ADHD, who couldn't sit still, and counted it as a difference between them when he could plant himself in front of a computer or book for hours. Confronted with _nothing_ to distract himself with, he's starting to wonder if he can claim it any longer.

Or maybe his brother has been right about his "OCD control issues" for years. Because watching Anna get everything in place without being able to do much of anything himself at this stage is driving him _nuts_.

Anna's lips curl gently into a smile, her doe eyes focused on the task at hand, and she shakes her head slightly. "It works sometimes, Sam. That's been the 'first contact' line of angels forever for a reason. 'Be not afraid.'"

"Anna was always very good at human contact." Inias praises his sister as he pops back into the room with ingredients again, but all Sam can think is that his brother would _not_ be able to let that line slide. He snorts despite himself, mentally inserting into the conversation Dean's dirty joke, and Anna raises her eyes and a brow at him knowingly.

He hadn't been as subtle about laughing as he intended. Dean's a terrible influence.

"My brother is _very_ possessive of your brother, and we both know how he would take that. If you make that joke around him and he sulks at me for the rest of his life, you will regret it for the rest of yours." Anna promises, but there's amusement rather than a threat in her eyes, and she resumes paging through Castiel's journal, portioning out ingredients into a silver bowl.

It's a distraction, and he needs a distraction, and maybe he does put a bit too much attention into Dean's life sometimes so he doesn't really feel any shame doing it now. "Does it bother you? I mean. . . it's gotta be weird for you, Cas and Dean. . ."

It's Anna's turn to chuckle, worrying her lip between her teeth for a moment before shrugging slightly. "Your brother and I were just. . . sex. It wasn't going to go anywhere, and we both knew it. I was entirely aware of it. You didn't see what I did."

An angel's perspective into things. Sam finds himself leaning forward slightly, eager to understand, and Anna humors him, lowering her voice to conspiratorial levels. "There's a reason Uriel and Zachariah and Hester and . . . well, all of them . . . worried about your brother's influence on Castiel. For instance, did you ever notice how close they stood . . .?"

"Yeah, Cas was practically on top of his shoes half the time. Still is."

"Mm. Close enough to touch." Turning the page, she eyes her brother's Enochian for a moment, before drawing onto a parchment piece and adding it to the items to be burned. "Especially for a being with wings that he was always fully aware of even if you were not, who otherwise kept his distance from humans for his own comfort."

Inias makes a sound of agreement from across the room, and Sam darts a glance at him, deeply amused by this new information, and just how he could fuck with his brother and brother-in-law with it. "What, Cas was like. . . wing-hugging Dean all that time?"

"Not . . . _all_ of the time. Not until he started to rebel, from what I hear. After that, I think if he could have cocooned him all the time without slowing himself down he might have tried and left Dean none the wiser." She and Castiel had ended up opposed to each other before she had much time to observe, but she had heard, and her time between resurrection and resurfacing once Heaven closed hadn't been spent _entirely_ without information. "But he was very protective of your brother from the start." Raising her eyes, head still tilted down, she fixes a curious look on Sam from beneath her lashes. "And of you. Did you know he threatened to kill me if I touched you?"

Sam blinks, shaking his head mutely, and Anna smiles again. "I've known Castiel for a very long time. We aren't. . . _born_, but I've known him since he was created, and in all that time Castiel was a _constant_. Unchanging. He hadn't known you or your brother for three months by the time I saw him again after I was reborn like this, and he had already begun to change. Millions of years old, and he changed in a few _months_. That's . . . kind of huge. You were his friends, he said. His _only_ friends, in all that time." Anna unfolds from her knees, dusting her hands off, and shrugs casually. "Plus, Castiel's brand on your brother's shoulder when he took his shirt off wasa bit of a tip-off."

"Hester was enraged by how quickly he adopted your human mannerisms once he fell, even back in Heaven at his sentencing." Inias seems sad, his dark eyes downcast, and he pulls a bone forth from the satchel he's carrying, adding it to the bowl without looking at Sam or at Anna. "I believe it was why she punished him so severely. And why she killed your brother, at that lake."

Sam bites back a harsh comment in response to that, but Inias raises his head perceptively, meeting Sam's eyes gravely. "I'm sorry. That day, seeing what _we_ made of Castiel, is what prompted me to leave. I would have liked to tell Castiel that and apologize."

"Yeah, well, tell him later." Sam watches the angels exchange a look, and his hands tighten into fists as he pushes himself straight, shoulders squared. Anna has been engaging in this conversation to distract Sam, and he's been allowing it knowingly, but he is not_ blind _to what's happening. "You don't think we're going to make it."

"I think it was a long shot the first time, Sam." Anna admits, and she hands Sam back the leather journal of Castiel's research.

"Which is why you bet against me and tried to make sure I was never born." Sam surmises bitterly, but Anna doesn't rise to the bait. He sounds defensive and churlish as he continues. "I beat him before."

"Yes, and you saved the world. But you died doing it. So did everyone who went with you but your brother." Sam's starting to wonder if every angel gets crappy pep talks programmed into them, or if it's just unique to Cas's old garrison. Staring at Inias for a moment longer, Sam snorts and drags the lighter out of his pocket and Ruby's knife out of his belt, tucking the journal beneath his arm. Pushing himself to his feet to stand next to them, looming over both angels, he adds the final element of the spell with a quick slash of the knife across the inside of his forearm, his voice low and matter-of-fact.

"It wasn't ever about saving _myself_."


	18. Chapter 18

_**Author's Note:**__ So there is a LOT happening in this chapter. A lot. I just want you to remember as you read this chapter how I gave you nice ones first, like the wedding, and all the happy moments. . . because._

_Well._

_This isn't necessarily a very happy chapter. You'll see. I love you all! Try not to hate me too much._

* * *

...

The stone is cold beneath Sam, unpolished and uncomfortable, and there's something about being on the ground looking up at other people that throws him off. He's gotten used to a bird's eye view on the world, to being the tallest person in any given room, and having people look down at him is strangely disconcerting. He does his best to shut out Anna's pitying, sympathetic stare and Inias's gaze which borders on hero worship.

He gets why Dean hates that now. He wants to smack the angel upside the head and remind him that the chances of him pulling this off are actually fairly slim, but that would defeat the purpose of getting his head ready for it. And he's still never been as good at ignoring the 'angel of the lord' factor as Dean has. Cas dropped into their lives and told Dean he had a mission from God, sure. . . and Dean had responded exactly like any man who had zero sense of self-worth and no particular faith would. Dean had gone out of his way to make sure every angel he encountered, _including_ Cas, knew they were nothing but another supernatural creature to him, and meeting them wasn't a religious experience. Sam had faith. Maybe not as much as he'd had in the past, but he believed. And Cas had hesitated to even shake his hand, or touch him.

He'd gotten over seeing himself as an abomination, eventually. Maybe Cas had helped with that. As much as Cas looked at Dean as a litmus test of all things good in humanity, they got to see the angel flaws and all. No, maybe that wasn't fair. They got to see a hell of a lot of flaws in angels before Cas showed them anything good out of them. So now Sam still has faith, but reasonable expectations.

He shuts his eyes to the angels and breathes deeply, smelling the pungent tang of the Holy Oil dribbled around him, waiting for a light.

"What happened last time?" Anna's voice is quiet, hushed, trying to direct his thoughts without actively distracting him from them. "Lucifer took hold of your body; what broke the connection?"

Carved initials and plastic army men. A child's hushed laughter in the back seat of the Impala, their father's sleeping bag tugged over their heads like a tent hiding the light of a flashlight in Dean's hand as he read Sam one of the books from Bobby's, and Sam not realizing until a decade later that it was because Dean was trying to distract Sam while he listened for gunshots or the heavy fall of boots that would mean an impromptu hunt was over and they were safe again. Beers on the hood of the car and contemplating his role in the universe with his brother at his side, Dean staring up at the stars and lost in thought. A million takeout meals spent trying not to admit his brother was as funny as he thought he was as he people-watched from behind the wheel of the parked Impala on stakeouts, concocting ridiculous soap-operaic stories of every one of the normal civilians and families walking by and winking at any woman to look his way, regardless of age or attractiveness. Prank wars, heartfelt conversations, heartbreak, love, childhood, adulthood, traveling, danger, safety. . .

His brother pinned against the side of the Impala, his broken battered face as he declared he wasn't going anywhere, pleaded with him, and the glint of light against metal.

"Dean. Dean did it. . . Dean, and home."

Anna hums quietly under her breath, and Sam wonders if she's fruitlessly waiting for him to say more. It's enough that _he _knows. After a moment, though, he can feel her crouch down beside him, and he cracks one eye open to look up at her face.

She's holding a glossy photo out to him, plucked from amongst the random scraps tucked between the pages of Castiel's journal. Captured within, Castiel is staring at Dean with naked adoration and awe, and Dean is caught mid-laugh, genuinely happy in a way Sam's rarely seen, an arm slung around Cas's shoulders. And between them is an honest-to-god slice of pie on the table. Dean's apple-pie life. What he'd tried to send Dean to before he took this plunge last time, Dean has found it on his own, finally.

It's just what he needed to see.

Sam's voice catches in his throat, thick and unrecognizable as he takes the picture in his hand, fixing his eyes on that image of _family_, of hope and home and love. "Knock me out. Then light it."

Two fingertips press to his forehead immediately, plunging him into darkness.

. . .

The ground feels unsteady beneath Dean's feet, and though in part that's because the pipsqueak archangel of Team Free Will didn't give him a chance to brace himself before spitting him out onto the uneven footing of Stull Cemetery, it probably has just as much to do with the rumble shaking the ground beneath him. Kansas wasn't due for any earthquakes that Dean knew of, so he figures the party's already started.

It's a safe bet that the fight is on when he hears the thud of an invisible form slamming into the Impala, where he had been before he off-balanced. He can hear it, smell the brimstone of its breath, see slaver and drool and blood against the shining surface of his car, and Dean doesn't have time to question the screaming instincts that have him slam his shoulders back against the ground beneath him and kick out with both feet.

_Hellhound._

It could belong to one of Lucifer's lackeys. It could be one of Crowley's, ready to back off as soon as the Crossroads demon strikes a deal. Either way, ownership of the hound means jack squat to a man who has died _twice_ in the jaws of a Hellhound. His boots hit the weight of the invisible creature, claws or teeth shred the black suit pants at his knee and calf, and he can feel his muscles burning at the weight and effort as he twists to redirect its momentum and send it sailing over him, Colt braced in both hands as he releases a bullet into the apparently empty air above him.

Light flashes, a howl ends in a whine, and blood arcs with the falling body, thick and black and oily, splattering the length of his white button shirt and suit jacket.

Dean twists, gun still aimed, and holds his breath trying to hear the creature: the Colt has done its job. One less hellhound in the world. Turning has given him a perspective of the area around him, however, and it's . . . not good.

There are bodies littered on the cemetery grounds, a woman's sightless eyes stare at Dean from mere feet away, her hair clinging to her bloodied neck. . . he's not sure where the rest of her is, neck down. This is the problem with fighting monsters. Once they're dead, they usually just look like whatever poor dumb schmuck they climbed into.

Lightning splits the sky, the ground beneath him quakes again and Dean shoves himself to his feet, one hand braced against the Impala and the other holding the gun as he flattens himself against the side of his car. The thunk of metal against metal, impeded by thin fabric, catches his attention; a weight in his suit pocket that shouldn't be there, coinciding with the bruise in his ribs from how he fell atop something. Gabriel's sword shouldn't _fit_ in Dean's suit pocket, but then again a heavenly creature that could flatten cities shouldn't fit into a guy the size of his husband's vessel, let alone Gabriel's, so casual disregard for physics was nothing exactly new for the angel crowd.

Neither was being a cunning, conniving, duplicitous bastard. Dean could almost kiss Gabriel; he was fast becoming Dean's favorite in-law. With one simple token, he'd given Dean a weapon that would work against anything that came at him here, and let Dean fight his way to Cas _silently, _without drawing attention. It was also a pretty clear 'fuck you' to Crowley that no matter what deal they came to he sent Dean in to kill however many of Crowley's people he could reach first.

Dean couldn't let himself worry about Gabriel not having his sword, there. He could take care of himself.

He takes the first demon he comes across by surprise, a hand tangling in its already blood-soaked hair and yanking its head back as he slots the angel sword between its ribs to its heart, letting gravity take it sliding off of the blade as he slams his shoulder into the demon's buddy. He feels a rush of air that sends his hair on edge before claws catch the demon before him and rip him away into the dark. The demon's scream ends abruptly, and its mangled body crashes into a nearby gravestone with a sickening crunch.

With a curse, Dean grips the sword in one fist and raises the Colt in his other, scanning the night sky and braced to duck and dodge whatever the fuck _that_ was.

A roar fills his ear and it takes him a second to parse it out as a motor_. _A white Harley, its sides painted with the silver wings of a Pegasus, skids to a stop beside him, throwing up a spray of sod and gravel that he shields against. The unknown Valkyrie atop it seems to shine with excitement; blood paints streaks among the dye in her spun-gold curls, and a battle axe rests against her leather-clad knee, couched in a carrier mounted onto her motorcycle. "The Morrigan are on our side, hunter, do not shoot her. Kara has fought her way inside, as did the Scotsman. The crow triplets, our fae, the Thunderbirds, the rest of my sisters and I are . . . " Her lips spread into a feral grin, the purple of them almost black in the light, and she tilts her head up in appreciation as another avian screech fills the night. ". . . air support. The others are within the city, pushing their forces back, but the Reapers have gathered en masse. We _all_ feel the call of death . . . Lucifer is coming. Go _quickly_."

Spitting out profanities, Dean tucks the angel blade against his arm as he digs into his pocket, throwing his keys to the grinning death goddess in front of him. "Salt and goofer dust bags in the trunk. Put that bike to use and get us a decent perimeter around the graveyard so they stop sending hounds and flunkies at you guys in here, and the people out there've got somewhere to retreat back to. . . And move my car._"_

Cas would never let him live down throwing his keys to a stranger when he cringed every time his angel got behind the wheel. But her motorcycle was. . . rather terrifyingly well cared for, considering how covered in blood the goddess herself was. Yeah. That seemed like rational thinking to him.

(He's getting desperate, the worry of being separated from Sam and from Cas driving him to spur of the moment decisions. If either of them dies because he let himself be pulled away, he will never forgive himself.)

The empty doorway of the burned out church is flickering with sourceless light, and Dean throws himself into it without hesitation, leaving the Valkyrie to her 'air support.' It's clear that there's been battle here. The bodies that littered the ground outside become trip hazards within the enclosed area, and there is ash on the floor from someone's handiwork, though whether the soot had once been friend or foe Dean can't tell.

He doesn't really care. What he cares about is that they are between him and Castiel, and that any moment now Lucifer could pop up sans-vessel and tear this place apart.

…

The room is colder than Sam remembers it, without the heat of the demon blood running through his veins. The only light around him filters through panes of glass sheeted with unseasonable ice, a simple trident drawn by fingertip into the frost. Sam knows this is a dream, knows that this place cannot exist outside of his memory: he and his brother had watched Detroit burn to the ground, a battleground for Hell's civil war. He also knows that he would never have chosen this location.

He's not the one who chose it. And he's not alone.

A hand slides across the back of his shoulders and Lucifer circles him, too-close, too-possessive, Nick's face unblemished in this recreated memory as he tilts it to look at Sam, coming to a stop in front of him. "You'll have to forgive me for the set dressings, Sam. I felt you calling and I just got so excited. . . It's been a while since you let me talk to you. Nostalgia. It's a weakness of mine, what can I say. You remember this place, I assume? I like to think I'm memorable, but your mind's been scrambled a few times since we . . . "

"I remember." Sam interrupts, and he sounds angry, frightened, annoyed. None of those emotions would help him in this: he can't rely on anger throwing off Lucifer's control. . . he'd been furious last time, and it had hurt more than helped. It was something Lucifer could _use_.

"So you remember what happened here. I assume you're here to say yes again, aren't you? It was a matter of time. . . it always happens this way, Sam. Always."

His skin is still crawling from Lucifer's touch, unpleasant between his shoulder blades, and Sam shrugs unconsciously even knowing he's not really _here_. He doesn't want to remember Lucifer's touch, and doesn't want to look into this face. He doesn't want this, the powerful creature staring at him with lips faintly quirked and hungry eyes, as if this is a mere formality, as if he _owns_ Sam and always has.

As if this is fate.

"It's not going to happen that way. I'm going to fight you, and I'm going to win. Again."

Lucifer's laugh is pitying, chilling, and there's sympathy in his eyes as he steps back and spreads his arms, looking at Sam. "Is that how you remember it, Sam? You didn't win. You didn't even postpone things. We're still on track for everything that I've talked about, everything that is _meant_ to be."

…

The day Dean rescued Lisa and Ben Braeden from Crowley's demons, he was emotionally numb. Nothing the demons could do to him physically could compare to the pain of endangering a boy he thought of as his son and a woman who had cared for him, or the knowledge that Castiel had made it possible, or that his brother was falling apart. Dean had torn through demons that day, despite all the odds, driven and nearly suicidal. The situation is different to some degree, but the drive is the same.

The fight has been brought down to the fiercest of the combatants alone, the outside air support cutting off incoming attackers, but the defenders are still outnumbered: Crowley and Lucifer's forces both apparently came in force. Demons are fighting demons, but for the most part they group around the four defenders within the room: Samandriel and Balthazar flanking Castiel at the table, and the burly Scot and the leather-clad leader of the Valkyries have forced their way within and drawn the demons towards them, away from the center of the room. The close quarters makes everything stifling, chaotic. The Valkyrie is (unsurprisingly, Dean figures) a berserker, her sword red with blood and her teeth flashing white as she grins, her blade lighting the demons up from within, signaling that the death goddess is killing the demons themselves, rather than merely their human meatsuits. The Scotsman seems unarmed, but as Dean watches he shoves a hand out and force slams the demons around him to the side, making the ground quake. Balthazar and Samandriel are running on fumes, on whatever bit of Heaven they still had left. Balthazar is engaged in an angelic sword fight between the table and the once hidden door behind him from which the angels came earlier, but he's moving injured by the looks of him, though he doesn't seem drunk any longer. Samandriel has planted himself beside the table on the opposite end, beside Cas, and he looks impossibly young to be in the thick of this: he is muttering prayers Dean can't hear, and while Dean watches he abruptly blinks forward and palms a demon's forehead, burning it away, but the demon's commander is using their deaths as a ploy, a trick to get herself closer to_ Cas_.

Meg_._

With a sly grin she raises her hand, eyes focused on the young angel before her, and squeezes her fingers into a fist. Samandriel gasps, arms locking to his sides, blue eyes rolling back as Alistair's apprentice teaches him _pain_. Just as she did to Crowley. Just as she did to countless souls on the rack in Hell before she came topside to be a thorn to the Winchesters. Just as she did to Castiel at the White Throne in Utah, when she started all of this in motion. Cas, who is pale and still and dead on the table, unaware of the war around him and unable to defend himself now, someone else's blood sprayed across his cheek.

Something inside Dean snaps.

The sharp report of the Colt seems muted in Dean's ears as the demon currently pressing closer to him takes a bullet between eyes that flash yellow, eyes that haunt him and that mark him one of the angels' hell-twisted brothers, one of Lucifer's elite and Azazel's followers. The gunfire draws Meg's attention his way, her heart-shaped face turning to him, one dark eyebrow arching as she drops her fist, letting Samandriel brace himself against the table beside Cas, but her attention shifting doesn't free the angel from battle.

"Heya, Dean. I _figured _you couldn't be far with Clarence here all ripe for the taking. Where's Sam? Behind door number two? Boss wants a word with him too. . . " Her familiar toneless sing-song voice doesn't waver as Dean finally reaches the table, putting himself between her and her targets, as Samandriel looks up at him from beside Cas, and steadies himself with an unnecessary breath before blinking away to take on another demon, a surprise attack that ends with the angel staggering after the demon burns out on a scream, and opens the way for Dean to plant himself beside Castiel.

Her lip quirks into a smirk, and Dean can tell she's planning to continue talking to him, to draw information out of him, to pull on the years of history they've now built up as adversaries and allies and weaponize it as a distraction, but he doesn't give her the chance. Dean drops the Colt to his side abruptly, and flings himself at her. His impact doesn't stagger her—but the eight inches of silver sword unexpectedly and abruptly thrust into her chest with his off-hand catches her unawares.

Meg's blood is wet on his hands, slick on the smooth hilt of the sword, and her black eyes stare into his face with something akin to surprise, lips parted in a slack O as light flares beneath her skin. Dean shouldn't let himself be distracted by the magnitude of this moment, but he can't help but watch in revulsion and sickness as she brings her hands to her chest limply over his wrist, before her knees begin to give way and death catches up to her.

Dean twists his wrist to free the blade as she slides bonelessly towards the ground, but it's as if the weight of her, the demon who had been unlikely ally and hated enemy, who had tortured Cas and been tortured by Crowley for them, who had killed Jo and Ellen and his father's friends but saved their lives, drags him down. He is off-balance and the next demon is too close, too fast, and slinging an arm out it sends him and the corpse with him crashing into the table, his elbow slamming down into Cas's chest as he tries to catch himself, dead weight pinning him against the still form of his husband as he shoves outwards to try and free himself. The demon he had known as Meg Manning may be the death of him yet.

Sam's backup comes through for him again, even with his brother's absence. The sigils drawn around Castiel, the 'unnecessary' demon protection that his little brother had insisted on before they were parted, gives the demon pause, and Dean shoves Meg's body violently away from him, trying not to crack any of Cas's ribs as he gets the leverage to do so.

He catches a glimpse behind him at that moment, and his eyes lock on a figure that slips into existence between one breath and the next. He doesn't need the warning that rings out in the voice of the herald of Heaven to the few remaining fighters within the room; he's already twisting in place to shelter Cas, throwing an arm up to shield them.

"_Close your eyes!"_

Power slams outwards from the extended palm of Gabriel, and the room is awash in light that Dean can see in photo-flash against his closed eyelids even hidden against Castiel and behind his own arm, and feel in the heat that scorches the room.

Silence falls abruptly, the room dims again, and Dean takes a moment to raise his head from Castiel's neck and swallow heavily at the complete _emptiness_ of the room; the bodies have disappeared, the attackers have either been shoved out of Gabriel's pocket reality or killed, the defenders are rising from cover, and Dean turns wide eyes to Gabriel who winks at him cheekily.

"I know. I'm _good_. And I _technically _shouldn't have done that, but y'know. I can never tell Crowley's people apart from Lucifer's, and what can you do, right?" Grabbing Dean by the back of his jacket, Gabriel hauls him off of Castiel and turns a grin to the rest of the room, a grin that dies abruptly as his gaze flicks finally to the other side of the table.

Samandriel stares hopelessly back at his elder brother, his arms wrapped around Balthazar's chest as the lanky seraph pants silently, head downtilted as light and scarlet seep between the fingers pressed against his abdomen, fissures of blood and Grace cutting across his skin over the v-neck of his shirt and across his cheekbone as well. "Balthazar, _no. . ." _Gabriel swears roughly, and he's gone from Dean's side in a moment, opposite Samandriel and lowering Balthazar to the floor, cradling his younger brother to his chest. "No, you can't. . ."

"Can't order me around, Gabby. . ." Balthazar grates out without opening his eyes, long legs splayed before him inelegantly, body tilted towards his brother's as Gabriel presses his hand over Balthazar's beneath the edge of his jacket. The room is too still, too silent, as the few remaining defenders turn their attention to the cluster of angels and the passing of a comrade. "Never could."

"It was the Grigori." Samandriel offers quietly, holding Balthazar's free hand in his now that Gabriel has taken his weight. "Two still had their swords, or took some of ours in the war. Balthazar was defending me, driving them back from Castiel."

Balthazar snorts quietly, disagreeing with the heroic account of his actions as he slides his blood-stained hand out from underneath Gabriel's and fumbles before picking up his own blade from the floor, British accent laced with sardonic scorn and pain. "Killed in a fair fight. Rather embarrassing after all these years avoiding them. Yellow-eyed traitorous bastards."

"You're not going to die." Gabriel's brow is knitted in concentration and stubbornness, but tears are sliding silently down Samandriel's cheeks, and Dean _knows_ this moment. He knows the denial of clutching a brother against himself and making impossible promises. Gabriel doesn't have the juice to resurrect an angel. No one in this room has that power. Balthazar knows it too. Grace seems to pulse through his injuries, revealing the dying being of light within as he twists slightly.

"Would have made a _terrible_ human anyway. . . . textbook example of the prats you liked to play with." Balthazar counters hoarsely, and Gabriel chokes on a humorless laugh, tightening his grip around the brother who had supported him against Crowley, against upheavals in his brief rule of Heaven, against Michael, against Lucifer, and then fell from Grace and Heaven to fight beside him despite his terror of being weak and human. The only other angel on his side possessing of a sense of humor, however different from Gabriel's it might have been, it was enough to build a friendship upon and rekindle bonds of family that both of them had otherwise abandoned from the rest of the Host. "Don't waste your strength trying. Save Cassy." The hilt of the sword in his hand hits Gabriel's knee as he rests it there, eyes pained but determined as they fix on his brother. He would rather die quickly, and there is no coming back. "Tell him this self-serving egotist coward died like a soldier to save his ass, way I let him think it before."

After a moment, Gabriel reluctantly closes his hand around Balthazar's on his sword, nodding once in silent agreement and bracing his brother within the crook of his arm. As Samandriel looks away Dean does as well, his fingers weaving into Cas's hair as he dips his head to rest his forehead against the fallen angel's, knowing the grief he would wake to even if they survived the next step.

When the flash of light recedes once more, ash wings spread across the floor of the hidden room; one more casualty in the war of Heaven and Hell.

. . .

"You know you have to say yes, Sam. Nick here. . . he's gone. I can't scrape him back together, I used him up waiting for you last time." Towards the end, Nick had been decaying: the devil could no more bring him back from that destruction than he could heal him as he fell apart, keep him a fresh vessel. Nick wasn't made for it. "There's no one else for me but you. We've all got our lines, and you're it. Endgame. Last of my available options, unless you want me to keep showing up unannounced. I mean, it's not as if I_ want_ to level cities. It's just so _messy_. But it won't stop me. I'm not going anywhere, Sam. You're a convenience. All it does, you saying yes, is give me fine control, let me be more . . . discriminating. "

Sam's jaw is bunched, and it's harder to wrangle the motivation he had so carefully constructed for himself, harder to remember what he was supposed to bring into this to keep himself level, to give himself a lifeline. The devil is whispering in his ear, slowly picking him apart, the most skilled manipulator in creation.

He can't rush this, though. He cannot cave immediately, but he can't lose Lucifer's interest. Every moment he has Lucifer here is a moment he's stolen for Dean to do what he has to, and for humanity to brace itself for what's to come.

"You're planning to kill me, Sam." Lucifer is close, his breath warm across Sam's ear, and he freezes up in his dream. The cage. He can't let himself remember the cage, let Lucifer's casual nearness rattle him. "And you think I'm planning to kill you. But I'm not, you know. I want you here still. No cheating. No burning you out of your body as soon as I hop in. We'll play it fair. Do you still think you can take me? We'll do this right, mano-a-mano."

"You're lying." Sam bites out, and he turns his head to glare down at Lucifer. There's something about the devil dropping back flat to his feet from tiptoe after trying to reach Sam's height that should be funny, should be reassuring, but nothing about this situation is either.

"Sam. . . I have _never_ lied to you. And I never will. I won't kill you. . . I won't have to. You'll break long before then."

It's a challenge. A dare. The next step in the emotional manipulation.

. . .

The imprint of one of Balthazar's wings has left its mark across Gabriel's chest, soot black on the flannel and denim jacket, and Dean knows Gabriel could rid himself of the stain easily. Instead, he releases his brother's body gently, laying him straight and leaving Samandriel to close Balthazar's eyes as he strides to join Dean at the table holding Cas, face as much a mask as it was in the warehouse in which they had left him with his shame and his cowardice years before. "We're doing this now, or we're not going to be able to. We need to get to your brother. If saving him starts killing you, I stop and we burn Castiel and Balthazar together if we live through this ourselves."

There's no negotiating in this. No telling Gabriel to save Castiel at the expense of Dean's life if he has to. The archangel doesn't give him the time, and he won't budge on the matter anyway: Gabriel is losing at least one more brother tonight, either Castiel or Lucifer, or both, or all of them that stood with him; and the only way to defeat Lucifer that he has on hand is Sam. Sam, who needs Dean.

Gabriel untucks Cas's undershirt with a yank, shoving it and flannel to bare him up to his sigil-scarred chest, and Dean bites down the urge to sputter in surprise and indignation despite the gravity of the situation. Watching his new brother-in-law manhandle his effectively dead husband is not the way he'd have envisioned spending his honeymoon, if he'd ever envisioned a honeymoon at all and if the end of the world weren't a lot more familiar of a situation. It feels like he's on display, like this is some really screwed up and not in the least bit arousing porn when he unfastens his own belt, folding it in half and gently prising open Cas's tensed jaw to place the leather strap between his teeth while Gabriel presses the palm of his hand against Cas's stomach.

"You tattooed a burning pentacle onto a Christian angel." Kara observes with a thread of irony despite her solemn expression, as she pushes a chair to nudge against the backs of Dean's knees, making him sit within Gabriel's reach, next to Cas.

"Protection symbol." Dean corrects, earning him an eye roll as Kara walks away, but at least she doesn't break into a litany of other symbols that would work just as well without the modern human connotations.

"We will secure the doors, Loki." With a glance at Balthazar, Samandriel kneeling beside him, she shakes her head slightly and corrects herself at last, stepping over the dark expanse of burned out wings carefully to preserve them. ". . . Gabriel. I will have my sisters tell us of what's happening in the city. Good luck."

"Good luck?" Eyes sharpening, Dean looks at the Trickster suspiciously as he rolls up both sleeves. Archangels are. . . well, hell, they're all pretty terrified of Lucifer, he knows for a fact Michael is a scary badass, and Raphael had ripped things apart fairly well himself and he was the runt of the litter of the four of them from what Dean understood. Gabriel didn't need _luck_ for this, did he? Luck in not killing Dean and Cas, sure, but. . . "How dangerous is this about to be for you, man?"

"She worries too much. This is no worse than trying to jump a car battery. Using a nuclear reactor for the jump . . . with no gloves and me as the cables. . . Now stop talking, bite down on something, and hold on to your hat, kiddo, because this might get pretty fucking scary." With a press of his hand Gabriel unravels the time control on Castiel, and the fallen angel lurches to life with a drowning man's gasp as Gabriel shoves his hand _into_ Castiel, just as Asmodeus had only a short time before. Only the belt between his teeth stops him from reflexively biting down on his tongue as his eyes roll into the back of his head, hands scrabbling against the smooth surface of the table for purchase, foot kicking out.

Dean doesn't have time to comfort him or to panic at the naked agony etched into Castiel's face. Gabriel's hazel eyes are glowing as his gaze snaps to Dean, and the next thing the hunter knows is _pain_. It had taken _years _on the rack to reach this level: Alastair flaying his soul open bit by bit, taking his time, building the anticipation of it, making the offer every day and carving Dean into something new. He hadn't considered it, not really: Gabriel is _ripping his soul apart,_ and it's _not_ the first time it's happened to him. He should have known, exactly, what he was signing up for.

He'd had decades of experience preparing for this . . . in Hell. And now he is reliving all of the pain of it again, thirty years of scars ripped open and made fresh in a moment.

Dean's screaming and he knows it, and he can feel Gabriel through him, beginning to withdraw, to give up. Maybe this _is_ killing him. Maybe this _is_ a stupid idea, and maybe Cas was right to say his goodbyes, to not get his hopes up. But this is also exactly what Asmodeus did to Castiel. She'd torn _everything_ away, left him bleeding out and ruined. Dean's hand locks on Gabriel's wrist and he forces himself to silence the scream, panting, and his voice sounds foreign and wrecked and raw "Don't. Stop. …I can do this."

Unseen by Dean, Gabriel ducks his head down, bathed in light, and grimaces. The pain spikes, and Dean's knuckles whiten over Gabriel's wrist and over the arm of his chair, muscles of his neck cording, and then nothing.

. . .

"Do it." Sam's voice is a rough command, and Lucifer smiles.

. . .

Warmth surrounds him, welcomed arms encircle him, and his cheek and nose tingle from the familiar burn of the ever-present stubble his face has been pressed against. "You _heard_ me. I know you did, Gabriel. You never should have. . ."

"Shoulda, coulda, did. Yeah, I heard you. I'm not hearing a thank you now, though." There's something sharp and unfamiliar in Gabriel's voice, but Dean doesn't care to identify it. They're on the floor, he can tell; the cold marble beneath him is a soothing feeling on his over-heated skin. They're never this warm. Cas would have thrown the covers off the bed hours ago, or shoved the sleeping bags down to their waists. His angel is a frikkin' furnace.

_Cas._

"You're making my head hurt, Cas." Dean mutters, and Cas's pulse jumps in his throat beneath Dean's cheek. Turning his head into it, Dean presses a kiss instinctively to the thrumming heartbeat beneath his angel's skin. He's _alive_. Breathing and bitching, which goes hand in hand with it being _Cas, _actually _himself_. It's a frikkin' miracle.

Long fingers smooth over his hair, down his neck, before clasping his shoulder, pulling him in tighter and holding him close. Dean can't help the fact that his brief laugh sounds like he's choking when the familiar words rumble through him in that graveled voice.

"Hello, Dean."


	19. Chapter 19

Dean smells like blood and sweat, like burned electronics and brimstone and gunpowder, and Castiel is fairly certain he has bathed in the blood and slaver of hellhounds as well. . . but he feels like _home_. Castiel's back is braced against the wide base of the table where he's apparently been frozen for hours, his legs splayed to allow him to hold Dean upright against his chest, both arms folded around the hunter. He wishes they had more time. There's never enough time in the middle of a war to do or say what you should _most_ when lives are on the line, when it could be taken away.

Cas spent the entirety of the civil war in Heaven wishing himself back down to Dean, and then loathing himself for every death when he indulged, when he allowed himself to be pulled away and linger longer than he ought to. Of course. . . he had a considerable amount to loathe himself for during that war, beyond his attraction to Dean Winchester. Dean hadn't been trying to distract him then, not deliberately, and considering the state of him there is little imagining he's attempting to be distracting now. Unless the plan is to tempt Castiel into dunking him in a bath and then tucking him into bed. Both of which would likely_ become _distracting.

Humanity is turning him into a lascivious and slothful creature. Or perhaps _that_ is legitimately Dean's fault.

Cas wants nothing more than to wrap Dean up in his arms and take him away from there, to determine how badly the damage to his soul affects him, but Gabriel is nearly doubled over in a chair in front of him, his foot beside them under the table, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose and knuckles pressing to his closed eyes, and it is disconcerting to see this level of weakness in his older brother, and_ deeply_ concerning that Dean hasn't pulled away from his grasp yet and demanded to be taken to Sam.

Dean and Gabriel are both fools. Complete sentimental fools. And they saved his life. Cas in turn loves the both of them for it just as sentimentally, though he would at the moment rather berate them both for risking themselves, and therefore the world, than admit he needed to be saved. Pride; he's come to recognize that particular shortcoming in himself.

For the first time since he tore out his Grace and fell to earth, Castiel feels _whole_. Not an angel, perhaps, but a whole human and without pain. And he has these two to thank for it. Burying his nose into hair matted with hound's blood and soaked in sweat, he pulls Dean tighter against himself and then claps him on the shoulder (a gesture he had picked up from Dean) before pressing his lips to a forehead caked in grime. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Gabriel snipes without raising his head, and despite himself Cas rolls his eyes at his brother (another human gesture he took to early on), nudging Gabriel's foot and raising his voice to normal volume.

"I wasn't speaking to you, but . . ." Castiel begins, prepared to thank the archangel individually, but Gabriel lifts his head from his hand and shoots Castiel a weary smirk.

"Fair enough. _I_ was talking to _him_. He's the one sitting there putting out the 'thanks-be-to-God-and-Gabriel' for stitching you back together. _You're _just being. . . a really sappy lovey-dovey _human_. Seriously, too saccharine even for me. Stop, you're embarrassing the whole family." Gabriel's expressive face twitches, he swallows unnecessarily, and Castiel's heart sinks at the 'tell' of it. "What's left of us, at least."

Dean stiffens at Gabriel's words. As the hunter slowly extracts himself from Castiel's grip, Cas searches his face, the lines of it etched out all the more clearly in the dirt and blood that make a mask of him. This should be heartening. Dean's moving on his own, Dean's preparing himself for what's next, but Cas stares at the man he loves in confusion and increasing concern, his head tipped to the side, body tensed. Dean stands unsteadily, one hand braced on the tabletop, the other extended down towards Cas to draw him from the floor, away from where Dean crumpled when Gabriel tore free of them both. Though Cas doesn't allow Dean to pull him or take on his weight, he does allow himself to be guided, lacing his fingers through Dean's.

He stops, half-crouched and poised to rise, when Gabriel straightens resolutely in the chair. The wing burned across Gabriel's chest is a stark brand, the array of feathers distinct and unique as a fingerprint to each angel. Castiel lets out a shaking breath as Dean squeezes his hand, bloodshot green eyes fixed on Cas to watch as realization sweeps over the fallen angel.

Castiel knows what he'll find when he turns, but it makes the scene no less heartbreaking. Samandriel stands over Balthazar's still form and one perfect imprint of a wing sweeps across the marble floor, the wingtip stopping just beneath the edge of the table on the opposite side of Castiel, as if his brother had reached out towards him in his death and never quite reached him.

Bowing his head, free hand braced on the table, Castiel closes his eyes for a moment and breathes slowly, controlled, the old self-loathing coursing through him again, grief making it sharp. He should never have let it come this far. He should have ended things before people he loved died and maimed themselves to protect _him_. Before Balthazar died, _again, _because of him. Dean tugs him away from the table with their joined hands, turning Cas toward him, and folds his other arm around Castiel's shoulder, hand tangling into the unruly dark hair at the crown of his head as he hides Castiel's grief for him and attempts to lessen it, as if Dean can sense the pain hidden behind stoicism.

Dean knows Cas won't let him give comfort for long. That he'll throw himself headlong into the conflict around them in no time at all, and pretend as though he hadn't just silently fallen apart, as though he isn't trying to punish himself for something that he could not have hoped to prevent. Looking at Samandriel over Castiel's head, and swinging his gaze to Gabriel as he rises from his seat, Dean chooses his words deliberately and dares them to contradict him. "He said to tell you he died a soldier, Cas."

It was close enough to the seraph's last words, without the naturally sarcastic undertone that would only serve to cripple Cas with more guilt. Meeting Dean's eyes over Castiel's head, Gabriel nods slightly after a moment and looks to Samandriel, tipping his head towards Cas significantly. When Cas pulls away from Dean, his face closed off and emotionless again, Samandriel is there offering Balthazar's sword to him with an open, earnest expression.

"I think he'd want you to have this. You've carried Hester's too long, brother." The sword is clean of Balthazar's blood, gleaming silver in the light of the room; the last remaining piece of Balthazar's manifested Grace. Castiel has carried Hester's hate for him the entire time he's been on Earth this way, the memory of what he'd done to her in his madness at Storm Lake fresh every time he went to battle since he took up her sword again in San Antonio. He wore it close to himself every day since as a reminder of the monster he is.

Balthazar had died a soldier, Dean said. Balthazar had thought Castiel's life was worth dying to preserve, even after everything that had transpired between them. Cas closes his hand around the hilt of the blade slowly, and he straightens minutely. It's such a small thing to feel like a victory, and Dean realizes ironically that the best marriage advice he ever got, he'd taken from a zombie. Karen Singer's voice plays through his memory, when he accused her of lying by omission to Bobby just to keep her husband from wallowing in guilt. . .

_I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say you've never been in love. He's my husband. My job is to bring him peace. . . not pain. _

Stepping back from Cas, squaring his shoulders, Dean does his best to ignore the mess of his fresh memories of Hell, the sharp and sudden regression of his mental state, telling himself that the problem's all in his mind. He'll play through the pain, figure the rest out later when Sam hasn't got his head on the chopping block. Fumbling slightly, he grasps the archangel blade he'd been carrying and offers it back to Gabriel.

The Trickster looks at the outstretched weapon, raises an eyebrow, and snorts. "What'm I supposed to do with that, offer to scratch his back and hope he lets me drive a sword through it? We tried me sword fighting Lucifer once before. It didn't end well for me. Never gonna, and definitely ain't gonna work with me like this, cut off from Heaven and fresh outta holy juice. I'm just one of the pagans now, kid, and he waltzed through them at that motel, remember? Lucy's the duelist, not me. You hang on to that. You're the one that's supposed to do the deed, after all. And you're gonna need it now that_ my _bro and _your_ bro are sharing headspace."

_. . . No. _

No, Sam hasn't said yes. Dean still has time. But Gabriel is watching Dean with sharp, knowing eyes, and it hits him, really hits him.

None of them can take on Lucifer in his natural form. There is no defense any of them can mount against an _incorporeal_ Archangel whose mere presence burns cities to the ground. Sam had gone off not to wrestle with the Devil mentally, but to see if he could kill the Lucifer physically; by killing himself. Failing that, Dean's supposed to do what Heaven told him all along was his job, once Lucifer is made vulnerable in Sam's body.

"I can't kill my_ brother_. . ."

Gabriel's lips quirk bitterly, and he clearly and deliberately feeds Dean's words back to him, the challenge that had driven him to fight and die when Gabriel had voiced the same hesitation, the question that had forced him to finally take a side and quit riding the pine while Lucifer and Michael destroyed the world and humanity, everything he had grown to love since running away from Heaven. "Can't? Or _won't_?"

Castiel's hand falls on Dean's shoulder before he can formulate a response, his fingers digging into muscle painfully, and he frowns at Gabriel thoughtfully as he interrupts them abruptly. "How much power do you have left? Enough for a few more tricks?"

Gabriel squints at his brother and draws his response out skeptically. "Maaaaybe? Long as I'm not tied up trying to strong-arm Lucifer."

They have on their side the Righteous Man, who has proven that he can reach his brother no matter how deeply he is buried. The Herald of God turned god of tricks and lies, who knows Lucifer better than any other being in existence. Three angels who have fought in countless battles at Castiel's side over the eons, but who Lucifer knows only by name and reputation. Whatever few pagan gods are still alive to fight, who have banded together behind Gabriel. And they have Castiel himself, the only creature to ever successfully hoodwink an archangel, a devil, _and_ Sam Winchester. Who Lucifer once compared to himself, and who Heaven now considers second only to Lucifer for treachery.

"We can work with that."

. . .

The room is empty save the two of them, Castiel's arm wound around Dean's shoulders, his forehead resting against his husband's. He measures his breathing against Dean's unconsciously as he caresses along the line of Dean's jaw to wipe away a remaining smudge of dirt, thumb stroking his skin repetitively, with and against the grain of the stubble on his cheek, reveling in the change of texture as it drags against the whorls of his fingerprint. "It's down to you. I'm sorry. . . you have to make him _believe it_, Dean."

Castiel hates this. Hates himself that _this_ is what he can offer in return for everything Dean has taught _him. _ Because Cas has never been able to convincingly sell a small untruth.

But he can lie boldfaced to the people he loves when it matters.

"_Sam_ has to believe it."

"I get it. I just don't_ like _it." Dean lets out his breath slowly, controlled, and nods. "It's a good plan, and it's all we got." Tightening his arms around Castiel's waist to tug him closer, Dean steals a quick kiss, hard and perfunctory, before opening his eyes and stepping back, hands lingering on Cas's waist a moment longer, Castiel's hands curled around his shoulders because even at arm's length now they don't want to lose contact completely. "I got this. I can do this. You two do your thing, and don't. . . y'know. Die."

Castiel smiles faintly, corner of his lips tugging up despite himself. "No promises. But I'll try not to."

"He's in." Gabriel pops into existence again beside them, and Castiel's arms drop from around Dean immediately at the intrusion; once more they're soldiers in their fathers' causes, comrades at arms rather than friends and lovers.

"Good. Then we're ready. Whatever happens. . . respond, but don't let yourselves be taken in by it completely. You need to remember the plan."

. . .

This isn't a fight: it's a slaughter.

Gabriel had warned them; he had shot down the idea of relying on the pagans gods and goddesses to defeat Lucifer, when Dean and Sam had been on board with Kali's plan to square off against the archangel and end the Apocalypse. His reservations hadn't changed, but once Heaven closed its doors he was fresh out of options, and he'd learned his lesson from the Winchesters.

They _have_ to fight. All of them, the pagans included. While their intentions may not be entirely altruistic (Kali isn't the only goddess whose motivation seems to be that _she_ is the only one permitted to end the world), and the dietary habits of some might leave something to be desired at times (thankfully no one is requesting virgin a la mode in a war zone), the pagan pantheons that took Gabriel in when he was running away from Heaven _are_ his family.

And he can't fault them for wanting to fight to live.

Still, standing atop of the Bowersock Dam over the muddy Kansas River, he wishes it could be some other way. Gabriel had said, from the start, that any pagans taking on Lucifer would be turned into fingerpaint. Now he wishes it were that clean.

Dean doesn't think he ever learned the Scotsman's name, what he was god of, or even understood a word he was saying in that accent. . . but he can recognize the pieces of him shredded across the bridge. The younger Valkyrie's battle axe is at Dean's feet and she lays sprawled, crushed beneath her motorcycle, her eyes sightlessly staring up at the night sky beneath the yellow fluorescent lights. Gabriel flinches when he sees her, and then leads them on wordlessly.

They don't have to look far for Lucifer. They just have to follow the glow of fire.

Sam Winchester seems to glow in the light of the fire around him; a towering figure, head to toe in white, unaffected by the chaos around him. He should be smoldering, at least. He should be drenched in blood. But it seems to roll off him. Lucifer's vessel strides through the flames being thrown at him, not as if he's parting them, but as if he's embracing them.

Kali never stood a chance. The ground is wrecked and smoking at their feet, fissures run along Massachusetts Street deep and wide enough that cars have tipped into the chasms, and cracks chase themselves through the old brick facades of the historic district of the Kansas town. In the center of the street, her hands outstretched, her lush lips pursed and eyes narrowed in determination, Kali flings a burning car at Lucifer's head. The weight of it, the explosion of the gas tank, they don't faze him. The archangel swats them aside casually, and finishes his slow stroll to the goddess.

"So, you're the one who talked my brother into going to war against me." Lucifer's words in Sam's voice; it's chilling, disgusting, wrong. "Violent little insect, aren't you?"

"Lucifer, no!" Gabriel's voice is strident, high and sharp, and Lucifer turns to his brother with his hand around Kali's throat, holding her up off of the ground.

"Now this _does_ seem familiar, doesn't it?" Even in death, Kali is defiant. Both flaming hands wrapped around Lucifer's wrist, she watches Lucifer with fathomless eyes; and when he snaps her neck casually, she goes out in flames, a beautiful, destructive supernova.

In the end, Lucifer dusts soot off of his hands and meets Gabriel's furious stare mildly as the Trickster outstrips his companions, appearing within a foot of Sam Winchester, hand clenched around the archangel's blade as he lunges, Lucifer tuts in mock sympathy at Gabriel's obvious grief. "I knew you had a thing for her, brother, but really? This sort of display is just. . ." Lucifer snatches Gabriel's fist out of the air, and shoves his brother backwards; even the bare minimum of his strength sends the smaller man crashing into a car, the door crumpling around him. ". . . tawdry. Was your pagan whore really that. . ."

"Her _name_ was Kali, you sanctimonious prick. And yeah she was a violent bloodthirsty bitch, but she was still a damn sight better than _you_. Probably why she was worshipped as a goddess and you. . . you're still just Dad's rebellious brat, aren't you?" Gabriel's eyes are shining as he picks himself out of the car.

"What did you just say to me?" Sam's voice is dangerous, his nostrils flared in anger; and it's just such a _Sam_ look that it's sickening to see it with Lucifer's intent behind it.

Licking his thin lips, Gabriel shifts on his feet, side-stepping to circle, to make Lucifer turn with him. His mocking jeer borders on a juvenile taunt. "You heard me. You act like you're so much better than they are, than _we_ are. . . but hell, Lucy, you aren't even the main character in your own damn story, are you? Dad is. Prophets, messiahs, saints. . . all _humans. . . _they_ all_ have first billing over you. Hell, even Michael gets better showing. Because in the end, you're just the cockroach Mikey dragged outta Heaven and threw to Hell, making playmates outta the broken humans like that shows you were 'right.' Like it doesn't just show how _pathetic_ you. . ."

Lucifer's open palm thrusts out, and force slams into Gabriel: The force of his impact creates a trench through the asphalt, but Lucifer doesn't give him time to pick himself out of the rubble this time. Fisting a hand in Gabriel's shirts, he hauls the archangel out and slams a fist into his face, wrenching the blade away when Gabriel takes another swing.

"Than 'we' are, Gabriel? Admitting you'd rather count yourself among them than your own family? You are _nothing_. You are less than nothing. Another petty little pagan, selling out your own kind. Did it give you a thrill, to claim to be a 'god'? And you say I'm blasphemous."

Spitting blood in Lucifer's face, Gabriel sneers. "I didn't say a damned thing about blasphemy, _bro_. I said you were _pathetic."_

When Lucifer slammed a blade through the heart of the archangel Gabriel in a kitschy hotel in Muncie, Indiana, he did it with regret. With evident pain at being forced to murder one of his closest kin.

Gabriel gave up that claim when he gave up the last of his Heavenly power for a pair of humans.

Lucifer feels no such remorse for murdering 'Loki.' In a wash of silver light, the expressive face stills forever in slack horror as he crumples to the ground.

. . .

_"I need to know that you can do this, Gabriel." Castiel's voice is rough, hoarse, his blue eyes earnest as he looks to his elder brother sprawled across the chair before them like an indolent prince on his throne, one leg thrown over the arm of the chair and his elbow braced on the other._

_"You mean, can I make him believe I'm dead? Or, can I irritate him into wanting to kill me?" Gabriel smirks, but it is Dean's snort of sardonic laughter that draws both angels' gazes, given how quiet he's been for the rest of the planning session. Noting their regard, he jerks his thumb at Gabriel._

_"Heh. Yeah. Both counts. He was made for that, Cas, trust me." _

_Eyes narrowing, the archangel looks for insult in that statement, and speaks his threat slowly. "I can still take back my consent for your being hitched to my brother, jackass." _

_"Too late, and no take-backs." Dean returns fire, swallowing down a half measure of painkillers dry. _

_"You're sure YOU shouldn't be part of the irritation plan, Dean? It is your expertise after all."_

_ Cas, now himself irritated with both of them, clears his throat and interrupts, trying to drag them on track again. "You need to be_ **_subtle_**_, Gabriel." _

_"I'm subtle!" _

_"Dude. Slow dancing alien and the Incredible Hulk." _

_Gabriel snickers to himself, smirking at his own greatest hits, before he realizes there was definitely an intended criticism in that one and points a threatening finger at Dean. "Shut up."_

_. . . _

Castiel's death comes quickly after, and it is just as brutal. Dean is scrambling to the fallen Trickster, his hand closing around the discarded archangel blade, when Sam's gaze snaps to the side and he makes a simple crooking motion with his finger, yanking the fallen angel out from behind the flames as if by a hook. The holy oil container smashes, and the journal falls to the ground, its spine breaking, scattering pages that dance like fallen leaves in the wake of Lucifer's power.

"Castiel. Did you honestly think I wouldn't expect you? That I believed you would be anywhere but with your favorite human? Gabriel was bad enough, slumming with the pagans, but _you_. . ."

Blue eyes furious and bloodshot, Castiel stares silently back at Lucifer, his hands loose at his side, silenced by Lucifer's power: he is done with audience participation, for now. ". . . You could have been so much more. In a way, I owe you, for releasing me. But you made your choice, and you turned on us all. For _him_." Compared to the tragic beauty of the burning out flame of Grace, Castiel's end is bloody and abrupt, a snap of the finger and once more he is destroyed from within, every cell of him ripped asunder. Lucifer's gaze slides to Dean as the hunter yells out in horror, the spray of his husband's blood anointing him.

_. . . _

_ "I won't be there. No matter how real it looks, you will be on your own. It will sell the illusion. . . he would never expect me to be anywhere but by your side." The truth is, Castiel isn't certain how well he'll handle their separation himself. . . but it is sound strategy. It's the unexpected, and not merely by Lucifer. _

_"We have to show him what he expects; he knows he is more powerful than all of us, but more importantly. . . he believes he is __**smarter**__ than all of us. We have to let him believe it, until the very end. Because he's convinced he hasseen every possible way this can end. He's limited, because he cannot conceive an ending that does not follow the script, and he will follow it himself." _

_Dean's supported his strategy thus far, but Cas can't help but notice the flicker of unease in his eyes. Castiel's pacing stops as he reigns in the nervous energy that has him feeling trapped and claustrophobic in this room while Samandriel gathers his brother and sister, who fled as Lucifer rose. "This will work, Dean." _

_"You seem pretty sure." _

_With a quiet huff of humorless laughter, Castiel tips his chin down, shaking his head slightly. "Lucifer believes himself better than _God_, Dean. Doesn't that sound like someone you know?" This is his chance, his one opportunity, to make something positive of his slide into madness and redeem himself for his sins. He understands hubris. Castiel had Dean to pull him back from it; but Lucifer will never love another as much as he loves himself._

_"Not to interrupt the awkward moment, but what are you__** actually**__ going to be doing, then?" Gabriel pipes in, drawing a frown from Dean, who closes his mouth on a response best kept between the two of them. "I mean, if you're not glued to Dean like usual . . . "_

_"What I should have done years ago."_

. . .

"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas . . ." Castiel's lungs burn with effort as he finishes the chant in a low roar, and he braces himself back against the wall to keep himself upright as he watches black demonic smoke pour from the mouths of the half-dozen demons trapped between lines of salt and paint, leaving behind six unconscious humans.

Six _living_ humans. It's worth being thrown into a wall and a few cracked ribs, to know six more people are alive when they could have been dead. There will be enough bodies in this war, without adding these people to the final count just to murder the demons within them.

There is only one more creature he intends to personally add to the tally of the dead.

When the rush of air and feathers sounds, he pushes off the wall and snaps a hand out to take Anna by the elbow, steadying her upright when she staggers in the landing. Any time his siblings fly might be the last time they are able. Anna is pale, blood trickling from a cut across her eyebrow, her scarlet hair clinging to the small injury, and Castiel eases her to the floor to sit and reorient herself.

"The others?"

"Inias is dead." Castiel flinches, and nods slightly at Anna's terse update, accepting the truth of it. "Samandriel's injured and his power is drained. And _he is not here._" The last part is bitter, the first time his former commander has questioned him since he gave her orders on this mission.

"He's here." Castiel corrects her quietly. "He was here at the start, when our traps went into place, and he's here still. He intended to hide here, close to the conflict on the dam, and await the outcome. He would only come out or take a side in battle once he knew if his side had won or lost. He's here, but hidden from you. I _know_ him, sister." He deserves Anna's look of revulsion at that idea that he so personally understands this demon. His mind is whirring, determining how to flush out his prey. . . and the idea is so simple, so utterly ridiculous, that he cannot help but laugh to himself when it occurs to him.

Plastic and wires, a glowing screen-this is the first gift Dean ever gave him, the first human weapon as it were, putting the hunters in touch with him and giving him a lifeline to them when he made it impossible for him to track them otherwise. Anna stares at him in confusion as he turns the phone in his hands and presses numbers in deliberately, before tucking the phone into the pocket of his coat as it rings. Behind him, below him, he hears the answering ring begin and then end with a rough, familiar curse, giving him direction.

The hidden room is painted with demonic sigils, fortified against angels from within, but Castiel walks past the wards without hesitation, taking the steps down into the room brazenly, speaking conversationally to the demon within. "You told me to call you if the Winchesters were on to you, or if I needed you to clean up one of my 'messes.' . . . Once I became one of them, you should have changed your number."

"We had a deal." Crowley begins, and Castiel shakes his head before the demon can wheedle farther, cutting him off before he can begin. "Not with me. Not this time."

Crowley knows Castiel isn't alone here. . . and knows that by now, his own demons are dealt with. "I'm on your bloody side! You _need_ me. Who else will you have to run Hell?"

Castiel considers the question as he stands on the final stair, taking in the King of Hell, the demon who had talked an angel down from Heaven, poisoned him against his friends, tore him down. When the answer finally comes, it's flat, sardonic, and a deliberate reply to an insult that still rang in Castiel's memory. "A demon is a demon is a demon is a demon."

And he doesn't care which of them comes to rule: so long as it isn't Crowley.

The sharp report of the Colt ends the crossroads demon's reign over Hell; if his plan works, now, they can destabilize _both_ armies of Hell in one night.

. . .

_"You need to reach him, Dean. You have to bring Sam back to control of Lucifer's vessel. This is just like Zachariah's waiting room. You need to make him believe it, the way you made both of us believe it then."_

_"I thought I__** was**__ giving up then, Cas. That wasn't a ploy."_

_"Then make yourself believe this, too."_

_. . . _

On the streets of Lawrence, Kansas, the city of their birth, Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester stand only yards apart and on opposite sides of a war. Dean's black suit is coated in grime and dirt and blood, still torn from the Hellhound's claws, the archangel blade in one hand, and coiled to fight. Sam Winchester looks pristine in the white suit Lucifer favors on him, loose and unthreatened and unarmed, with the breeze off the river ruffling his long hair, a faint smile curling his lips.

"Sam… I know you're in there, man. I need you to hear me."

"You're right. He is in here. And he does hear you." Lucifer confirms, taking a few slow steps forward that have Dean tensing in place. "Are we going to try this again, Dean? I know where I went wrong last time. I was too _kind_ to him, to that point. I let him feel he had a degree of control, a dialogue between us, right up until I smashed your cheekbone with your brother's fist. I let my anger draw it out, gave him opportunity. He remembers it all. I've made _sure_ he remembers it all."

"You gotta hold on. You gotta come back to me, Sammy."

"It's _not going to work_, Dean. I have Sam locked up tight. Since I've gotten in here, I've made sure he remembers the way your bones crunched, how your jaw snapped, the stupid sentimental stare as you let him _beat you to death_. And yet, not a twitch." Dean glares back at Lucifer, trying to see his brother within him, shifting his hand on the blade. Lucifer sees the reading motion and smiles again, faintly.

"I told you from the start how it would be. You've changed minor details, but in the end. . ." Lucifer's hand has closed around Dean, shoving him to the ground and knocking the archangel blade from his fist with no more effort than swatting a fly, a motion so abrupt that Dean has no time to fight it, a foot to Dean's neck. ". . . We always end up _here_."

. . .

_"No. You can't do this. You can't. . ." The images are flashing before him, the feeling of Dean's flesh and bone caving beneath his fist against the Impala, the way his brother's hand clutched at his jacket as if to pull him _closer_, blending into the image of his brother at his feet, times and places and realities bent together, times he himself fought Dean twisted to a more violent end, a hundred ways for his brother to die. _

_"Sam, Sam, Sam. . ." The phantom hand slides along his chest, a mockery of a lover's caress, and Lucifer stands before him, a distorted mirror of his own face. "You can't fight this. This is destiny. You and me. And this is _his_ destiny."_

_The snap of Dean's neck is almost gentle compared to the riot in his mind, but everything stops with a scream. Lucifer drops the barrage of violent images only after Dean's body lays sprawled in the dirt at his feet, sightless green eyes staring at him._

_Too late._

_. . ._

"Dean!" Sam drops to his knees beside his brother, gathering the body into his arms as he sobs out Dean's name. Shaking him as if to wake him is senseless, is irrational, but Sam _can't_ have been too late. He can't. "Oh God, Dean, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. . ."

Lucifer' still there; he can feel the archangel waiting to take control again, using this to break him, to sap him of his will. To drive home the point that he is _alone_, that he's destroyed the things he cares about most in the world. Reality and Lucifer's visions have bent and merged so much that he almost misses it when the body in his arms melts away into silver light of illusion.

The sudden thrust of the archangel blade through his stomach snaps Sam's eyes up to the figure kneeling before him now, as Dean grasps Sam's jaw and makes him look him in the eye, reading his brother's surprise and fear. "Look at me, Sammy. You gotta look at me. Stay with me, you stubborn son of a bitch. . ."

"You need to get back, _now_." Gabriel, disheveled and exhausted, grabs for Dean; and Dean swats him back, wrapping an arm around his brother's back and holding him, keeping him from sliding to the concrete. Grace pours from Sam's eyes, from the stab wound, and Dean closes his eyes to the light before it can blind him, shifting his brother to brace him against his knee, holding him close without leaning over him. "It's over now. We got the bastard, he's dying in there, but you gotta stay. . . don't let him kill you too. . ."

In a rush of sound and heat and force, white light consumes everything.

. . .

On the muddy shore of the sluggish and unscenic Kansas River, Castiel watches with wide eyes as an archangel dies, unsure of if he is also witnessing the destruction of everything he has painstakingly built of his life since his Fall. Anna behind him, bracing Samandriel to her side, stares in solemn awe at the blinding display, at the end of the end of the world. The light washes over them and casts them in stark relief, before cutting out and leaving the world cool and dark in its passing. It takes a moment for Castiel to realize they've been joined as his human eyes adjust, but he doesn't flinch back from the tall, skeletal figure who steps up near his other elbow, watching the city with clinical interest.

"Tell your brother never to call on me again. And tell your humans that this was their final pass." Castiel turns towards him, blue eyes alight with hope, waiting for news, and Death takes him in impassively. "You played your hand well, all of you. My services were not needed today. Not for _them_. But you seem to have managed to rid the board of the petulant archangel who believed he could leash me, and the demon who interfered with my Reapers. That ingratiates me to you slightly."

Dean and Sam are _alive_. Gabriel is alive.

It's strange, perhaps, that Castiel has more difficulty comprehending _good_ news than he would have tragedy. His mind has stopped, a sort of mental exhaustion catching up with him, and Death arches one dark eyebrow at him smoothly as his silence lengthens.

"They are, however, in need of a hospital. If that helps."

In a way, it does. Castiel takes off like a shot, leaving his siblings and Death behind him.

. . .

The moment Dean realizes they're going to be all right is when Sam punches him in the face.

Pressing his other hand to his gut, gasping shallowly in pain, barely clinging to consciousness, agonized and bleeding and critically wounded, clutched in his brother's lap, Sam _still_ manages to give him a long-suffering bitchface. He hisses out an accusation between clenched teeth as Dean shifts to try and help him, resisting the urge to rub his jaw.

"I thought you'd _died, _you jerk."

". . . It was Cas's idea!" Dean defends, and Gabriel and Sam roll their eyes simultaneously as the battered Trickster goes to move them, drawing a pained groan from Sam.

"Even having just _seen_ you two save the world, times like this I gotta wonder what the hell Dad was thinking putting it on you idiots." Gabriel mutters under his breath.


	20. Chapter 20

Blood never seems to stain the blade. No matter how deeply it cuts, by the time it's held before his eyes again, an offer at the end of each day, the razor is just a tool. Dangerous in the wrong hands. . . or the right ones. . . but clinical. Impersonal. No matter how well acquainted he became with the slice of it, flaying the skin off of his hands, peeling him back bit by bit.

Every day for thirty years it left its marks on him. But he never even left a rust stain on it.

He can feel it again, now; Alistair has gotten sloppy. It must be one of the angry days, one of the days when Dean has managed to spit something out to actually piss the demon off, where artistry went by the wayside for savagery. He preferred that. Even after so many years or torture, he'd rather have the pain upfront than the anticipation of the pain, rather feel it tear than wait for the neat cuts. He can't even remember it happening this time.

He can't see Alistair or the blade, but he can feel the aftermath of it, his mind translating damage to a wounded soul into physical pain, leaving him breathing raggedly, straining against bonds that haven't existed now in years.

Dean doesn't understand _why_ he's back here, until he feels Cas pulling him out of it; not the purposeful, impersonal angel-of-the-lord who had physically hauled him from the Pit, but _Cas, his_ Cas, hands grasping him by both shoulders to anchor him in reality and keep him from thrashing, the bed dipping slightly as Cas sits beside him, leaning over to press his lips to Dean's forehead, his voice hoarse and worried.

"It's a nightmare, Dean. Just a nightmare. _Rest_. I'm here. I'll watch over you."

Hell melts away for dreamless sleep, but Castiel doesn't leave his side again.

. . .

The pillow beneath his head is thin and effectively useless for comfort, the worst sort of cheap motel room fare, and the bed's a shade too firm for his taste, but the idea of a _bed_ is so damned beautiful that for a long moment after rousing to semi-awake, Dean doesn't question it. The cord that tangles around him as tries to roll over, and the fact that reaching for the left side of the bed ends up with his hand smacking into plastic railing, rather than yielding an armful of angel, jolts him to consciousness.

Gabriel. Frikkin' _Gabriel_ had knocked him out. Despite the whole soul-ripping thing, and being at Ground Zero for Lucifer going nova, he's sure he hadn't looked _that_ bad. . .

A warm hand presses him back down into the bed when he moves to sit up, and the tension bleeds out of him when Cas leans over him, a warning glare fixed on Dean. Dean shouldn't find a scowl so damned endearing, but he does because it's Cas, and some things never change. Some things he never _wants_ to change. "You need at least two more hours of sleep."

"Cas. . ." He's alive and whole, color in his face, blue eyes alert, dark hair standing up every which way. . . and glancing past his shoulder, Dean can see Sam asleep in the next bed, monitors quietly bleeping in a reassuring rhythm.

They _won_.

Cas stops scowling once Dean fists a hand in the fallen angel's shirts, hauls him down bodily, and kisses him soundly, surging up against Cas's restraining hand. Cas sighs softly against Dean's lips as he forgets his protestation, awkwardly fumbling with the railing to lower it so he can settle on the edge of the bed, pouring his relief into the gentle press of lips as he cups his hands to Dean's face as if he's something precious and breakable.

Dean breaks the kiss on a grin, without pulling back. "You're a fucking genius, man."

Cas makes a noise of dissent, then pauses to consider the compliment fully, and shrugs slightly. "Technically, yes. But it wasn't genius, it was. . ." Dean raises an eyebrow as Cas trails off, rubbing the back of his neck as he straightens, and Dean _knows_ that look. Now he _has_ to know what Cas is thinking. "Seriously? Aren't we kinda past the nervous shuffling thing by now?"

"It was faith, Dean." Cas admits quietly.

"Wanna hear this." Sam mumbles, and Cas blinks in surprise, head swinging towards Sam, who stares at them blearily from the next bed, disheveled, hair falling into his eyes. Medicated after the surgery to stitch him up again, he nonetheless woke with their conversation. "'Cause if the plan was just 'gut Sam and pray,' I may punch _you_ too."

Dean knows his brother is bitching just to bitch, that he doesn't mean anything by it any more than Dean's offers to punch Sam for badmouthing his car are genuine, but Cas gnaws on his bottom lip for a moment before rising from Dean's bed, settling into his seat between them again. "I did pray. And I did tell Dean to stab you. But the plan was. . ." Rubbing a hand over his jaw, Cas shoots a look at Dean, as if Dean can put these thoughts into word for him. "The plan was based on our flaws."

". . .Yeah, gonna have to spell that one out for me too, Cas."

Cas huffs and reaches for a styrofoam cup of hospital coffee on the table beside him, shifting the various weapons laid across it as he rests his elbows on the veneered surface, considering his words. "My Father has been gone a very long time. I stopped believing his intentions. I thought he had abandoned us. It has been. . . difficult, to live this way." Gesturing at himself, Cas clarifies. "Disillusioned. Not as a human, though that came with its own challenges, obviously."

"Obviously." Sam agrees snarkily, and he gives up trying to prop himself up on the bed with a grunt, and a petulant look at the IV trailing to his arm as it clicks, dripping more pain medication into him on schedule.

"You alright there, Sammy?" Dean asks, worry in his voice, and Sam waves a hand slightly and drops his head to his pillow, closing his eyes again.

"Good drugs. Really. . . _really_ good drugs." Dean grins slightly, and relaxes again. Sam drugged up, drunk or feverish always seems to get amusing. It takes him a moment to remember how Cas might take that, given his past addictions, and glance to the angel. Cas meets his look and shakes his head slightly in answer to a silent question.

"I'm fine, Dean. You don't have to try to 'keep me out of the pharmacy,' this time. I promised."

". . . No. No eye sex, I'm in the room and I can _hear_ it." Sam complains nonsensically, earning a snort from Dean and an eyeroll from Cas. "You were explaining why you let me feel myself murdering Dean."

Cas grimaces, and nods slightly, letting himself be redirected to the topic, grabbing onto his last statements.

"Disillusionment. Yes. I think I understand, now. We have free will, we have choice, He doesn't interfere, allows things to play out as they will. . . but that does not mean we were abandoned." Castiel's lips quirk faintly, the echo of a smile, and he looks down at the lid of his coffee rather than face the scrutiny of the two men flanking him. "He had a purpose in mind, for the two of you; all along, we have known that you were to play a role in the Apocalypse. I believed that the goodness I saw in you, Dean, was because He knew you would be the one to save us. And I believed that the conflict, the struggle to be a good man that you have always put forth was by design as well, Sam. But when you brought me back, Dean. . . _everything_ made more sense."

"Yeah, okay. . ." Dean sits up, turning to sit on the edge of his bed, arms across his knees, and looks at Cas incredulously. "How's that go back to our 'flaws.' That's where you're losing me."

"You lost me back at us being designer humans." Sam slurs, and Dean smirks at his brother, before gesturing for Cas to go on. "You just keep workin' that morphine logic, Sammy."

Sucking in a breath, Cas nods, fingers lacing around the coffee cup, and turns his unblinking gaze on Dean, adopting the storyteller tones that Dean had witnessed in Chitaqua, his thoughts finally in order. "You two sacrifice everything for each other. Everyone knows it. Everyone has exploited it." Glancing at Sam, Cas inclines his head slightly, blue eyes earnest and sad. "Even me, when I hurt you to distract your brother, Sam."

"Told you to stop apologizing." Sam commands. "We're good."

"I wasn't apologizing again." Cas protests, earning an identical disbelieving snort from both Winchesters, and Cas hunkers down in his chair and continues sulkily (though he would also deny sulking). "I was giving an _example_. This is one of your greatest flaws, but it is also the source of your strength. It is what allowed you both to defeat Lucifer in the first place. I have been an agent of Fate myself; I understand that what seems like coincidence is at times Divine Will, you just have to look for the intent."

Sam opens his mouth to interrupt again, and Dean catches his brother's eye, shaking his head slightly. He knows Cas, knows that if they keep with the running commentary he'll never spit out a thought completely, he'll just clam up and they'll have to pry things out of him over months. Sam blinks slowly, processing what Dean's trying to silently convey, and then sighs and lays his head back down on his pillow, gesturing for Cas to carry on.

"I allow myself to be influenced. . . by Heaven's orders, by your friendship, by Crowley's plan. I rebel. I am prideful. Those are all part of me. I Fell. I betrayed you both. These are things I _chose_ to do. I listened to you, Dean, in Zachariah's Green Room, and it led me to learn about choice. I was taken in by Crowley and learned about deceit. I learned to layer a lie so deeply that even I could believe it, when I had to. And I learned about consequences for bad choices. I would never have understood Lucifer if I had not fallen. . . I would not have understood _you._ I would never have been willing to give up my life for family, the way you always have. I have embraced your flaw as well. I died to bring back you, Dean. To bring back Anna and Balthazar and Gabriel."

"We need to find a new hobby." Sam interjects drunkenly, against Dean's orders to be quiet, but this time Cas makes a noise of agreement. "Yes. We do. Particularly now that I am fairly certain if either Dean or I make a deal involving our souls, we're both bound to it."

Blinking, Dean opens his mouth, closes his mouth, and then starts again. "You saying if I make a crossroads deal or something, you're going down with me now?"

"Yes. That is _precisely_ what I'm saying." Castiel never really did learn to soften a hard truth. "I carry part of your soul. You carry all that is left of my Grace. If one of us barters with our soul, we both do." After a beat, Cas continues in what may be intentional or unintentional deadpan, even Dean can't tell. "I would be_ forced_ to kill any demon you kissed."

Sam laughs abruptly at Cas's spat of unapologetic possessiveness, and ends it on a pained noise, pressing a hand over the stitches in his stomach. "Owwww. Laughing's _bad._"

Huh. Okay. That was a topic they were going to have to revisit later. Scrubbing a hand over his hair, Dean nods for Cas to continue. After a long moment of uncomfortable eye contact, as if Cas has to be _certain_ Dean understands he's not to make deals without him now, Cas turns to Sam and continues explaining.

"If my Father created us and then stepped back, if he was trusting us to save what he had created. . . then he also gave us the weapons which we would need to accomplish it. He could not guide our path; so they would have to be things we set off with from the start. If God created us with our strengths for a reason, as I believed of you, then I had to question if he gave us our flaws deliberately as well. Yours saved the world, after all. So, I looked to Gabriel. He is brutal, naturally manipulative, disloyal to Heaven, and he too connected with humanity more than we were ever led to believe we should. He's another deeply 'flawed' angel, as I was. His petty tricks have been a part of him since the dawn of creation; his need to ridicule and mete out violent justice against the cruel, the intolerant, the self-righteous and the corrupt. . ."

"He's been fucking over people that remind him of Lucifer and Michael." Dean realizes, earning a slow nod from Cas, as Dean follows his train of thought. "Like. . . everywhere. For thousands of years."

"Including _us_." Sam mutters sullenly.

"Well. . ." Cas rubs the back of his neck, and hunches his shoulders. "There _are _similarities. But they do not run as deep as my brothers would have had you believe. You, Sam. . . you are obstinate, you are defiant, you reject authority. . . Lucifer took these as traits that he could exploit, when the truth is these similarities are superficial. Lucifer didn't understand humanity, so he didn't see how that could be the end of him. Dean, you're willing to die for your brother, you suffered Hell for him, and Lucifer saw that as weakness rather than strength of character. I let Lucifer feel justified in how he perceived our flaws: by letting him think Gabriel's sentimentality made him reckless, letting him believe I would resort to clumsy treachery and refuse to leave your side, letting him think that you would line up to die by your brother's hand again rather than hurt him, letting him think that_ you_ would break to his will when you thought you had murdered your brother. . . and then we exploited_ his _obvious flaw."

Cas shrugs awkwardly, raising and dropping his shoulders faintly beneath his leather coat, and finishes his coffee with a grimace of distaste at the bitter dregs of it. Dean's not sure he'll ever be comfortable enough with the idea of God's apparently altruistic intentions to buy everything Cas just said, but there's something about Castiel's _belief_ that Dean can't help but envy and love. He has watched Cas slide, seen him come painfully close to the broken shell he had met in 2014. _This_ is part of what that version of Castiel had been missing. Faith. Belief that maybe there's still a God who cares out there, somewhere, even if he's MIA.

That God doesn't hate him for everything he did.

Dean's not going to try to take that from the guy. Not after watching him self-destruct.

"Humph." Dean finally replies, shrugging. ". . . Well, it worked."

Cas smiles at him, a genuine smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes and seems to shine in him, even if it only barely quirks his lips, as if he can't quite believe their luck himself. "Yes. It did, didn't it?"

Sam mutters something that ends in a slurred, drug-softened 'stabbed in the gut,' and Cas turns his head to look at his brother-in-law, issuing a challenge he knows Sam cannot help but rise to. "_I_ survived it with only you two to care for me, dental floss to put me together, and alcohol for disinfectant. _You're_ stubborn enough not to let Lucifer destroy your consciousness when he died within you. You'll live."

"_You_ missed internal organs when you did it." Sam bites back in response to Cas's challenge, cracking his eye open again to peer at them.

"Yes, well, I'm better with a sword than Dean is." Cas remarks primly.

Dean rolls his eyes, dropping down from the bed, and musses Castiel's hair playfully as he snags his gun off of Cas's guardpost table arsenal and pulls clothes for himself out of the duffel bag at his feet.

"_There's_ that 'pride' talking again."

. . .

Dean has his feet kicked up on the empty hospital bed that regardless of how packed the hospital is no one has attempted to fill with another patient; in part, perhaps, because Castiel glares at every nurse and doctor to walk into the room. . . a room they have to enter past a tray angled as a mirror, a line of salt, and protective sigils sharpied on the back of the door. Even with Dean vertical again, Cas has been taking 'watching over the Winchesters' very seriously. If anyone has a problem with the bizarre vandalism, no one's brought it up with Dean.

Dean showing up at the hospital covered in blood and deposited by an archangel might have something to do with it. Or it might be that Cas showed up twenty minutes later; out of breath, armed, and terse, glaring at anyone to approach his humans. Or the fact that people were giving confused stories about Sam, all of which boiled down to 'scary as fuck, stay away.'

Dean's only _just _gotten Sam's nurse to loosen up at all, and he's been using the charm offensive for five solid minutes while Sam winced and gave puppy-dog eyes.

There's a perpetual bustle of activity outside of the windowed door of their hospital room, and Dean hears people clear away quickly in the moments before Cas slides back into the room carrying fast-food bags in his off hand, newspapers under his arm, sword-arm left free just in case. Cas glances at the nurse as if cataloguing her age, attractiveness, and proximity to Dean, eyes narrowing, deposits the food at Dean's side on the table, and then deliberately leans down to kiss Dean on the forehead, making sure the nurse sees it and has no delusions as to the nature of their relationship.

Never jealous. Nope.

Sam rolls his eyes. He's the one mostly undressed and being manhandled for bandaging, drugged enough to lower inhibitions, and Dean's the one being publicly branded as off-limits. "You're so frikkin' whipped. Both of you."

"That's what _I _said." Gabriel is incapable of entering any room without making an entrance, both arms pushing the door open before him as he ambles over the salt line, and wolf whistles at Sam, sparing the now bewildered nurse a cheeky wink. "If I'd known there was partial nudity I'd have been here sooner."

"Gabriel." Cas rumbles warningly.

Sam doesn't know if he should be mortified, or amused that _Cas_ is mortified. It's actually hilarious (particularly drugged as he is) to be on the other side of this equation, and to see someone _else_ being embarrassed by their elder brother.

"Hey, jackass. . ." Dean greets the Trickster with a scowl. ". . . You gonna explain magic-fingering me and dumping me the hospital, now?"

Gabriel waggles his eyebrows, injecting innuendo into Dean's words when there had been none to begin with, and Sam groans as much in annoyance as pain at laughing again. "God, no. I draw the line at _every_ angel we know flirting with you, Dean."

"Hey, _he _said it. I didn't." Gabriel helps himself to the fast food and grins at the nurse as he takes a seat on the foot of Sam's bed, making a show of attempting to get a look past the sheets covering him up to his waist as he noisily slurps down one of the sodas. "I'm actually here for _my_ bro, but . . . Free show."

"Gabriel." Castiel's voice is low, level, and he perches on the empty hospital bed beside Dean's feet, knee next to Dean's as he sits close enough for the hunter's bowed legs to brush his. Once he has his brother's grudging attention, he looks to the nurse, watching her flatly, brow drawn down.

"I. . . I should go." Blinking slowly, the nurse seems lost and a bit overwhelmed at the gathering occurring around her. "We'll. . . they'll. . . the bandages, later. If you need anything, push the button."

The moment she flees the room, Gabriel bursts into snickers, and Sam covers his eyes with his hand, as Dean nudges Cas's knee with his own. "Dude, you gonna do that to _everyone _who comes anywhere near us, Cas, or. . .?"

"You _suck_ at being a human." Gabriel declares with absolutely no tact, earning him a defensive glare from Cas.

And Dean.

And Sam.

"Hey, just calling 'em like I sees 'em. Geeze, tough crowd. If it's any consolation, a lot of humans suck at being human too." He finally offers, and Cas frowns faintly. Whatever his projected demeanor, Gabriel's humor is falling flatter than usual.

"I'm not sure how that's supposed to be comforting." Sighing, Cas glances up at the ceiling, rolling his next words around in his head before finally saying them, realizing there is no way to ask what he wants to without it hurting. "What did you do with their bodies?"

"Took care of them." Patting himself down, Gabriel pulls the keys to the Impala from his jacket pocket and tosses them to Dean without forewarning; the Valkyrie who had moved it for him had died gruesomely on the dam, and Dean stares at the keys in his hand a long moment before closing his fingers around them. Gabriel doesn't seem capable of sitting still in this conversation now, pushing himself to his feet and pacing to the bag of food again, helping himself now to the fries. "If you're looking to send flowers, use that church at the cemetery. The room there's gone, same way they are."

Gabriel took care of the bodies of his brothers and dozens from his adopted family on his own, while they were holed up in the hospital. Dean grimaces in sympathy, and Castiel lowers his gaze to Gabriel, frowning quietly. "What are you going to do now?"

"Damn sure not loading into that car with you three, if that's what you're thinking, bro." Gabriel dings a finger against the metal tray affixed as a mirror, making it resonate like a gong, and critically eyes the demon warding on the door. "We lost a few more of ours to the demons. No one gave them notice to stop fighting. Hell, they're _still_ fighting. Just 'cause we killed the big kahunas doesn't mean everything goes back to normal. Lucy and Crowley busted too many demons outta the pit by the devil's gates and riled up too many of the monsters. I still got a little bit of juice, and turns out I'm popular as hell because of those movies. Nothing better to do anyway, right?"

Dean drops his feet from the hospital bed now, turning to see Gabriel, brow furrowed. He _still_ sees right through the unaffected air, sees Gabriel's trying to blow off the significance of what he's saying, play it off as being another whim of a mercurial Trickster, the same way he did taking their side against Lucifer years before. Dean called him out then, and he has half a mind to do it now. Dean's opening his mouth to say as much when Gabriel lifts a warning finger and glares at him without a word.

Dean narrows his eyes, without backing down, but reconsiders what he's going to say. If Gabriel wants to pretend he's not affected, or pretend he could be anything other than the smartass archangel turned pagan equivalent of a hunter after leading this war and losing so much to it, Dean's not going to call him out on it. Not directly, at least.

But Gabriel disinvited himself from their life rather than risk them not inviting him into it. And that doesn't sit right; he's Cas's closest brother now. That makes him family.

"Well, I sure as hell ain't praying to you to keep in touch. So you'd better get your ass a cellphone if we're gonna be in the same line of work."

"I would prefer that to leaving messages in my subconscious." Cas agrees quietly, and Dean knows _Cas_ well enough to know this is Cas's version of reaching out. His stunted, deadpan attempt, blue eyes huge and solemn and unblinkingly fixed on his elder brother. This might as well be a chick flick moment.

The only thing missing is drugged declarations of love and brotherly affection from Sam, calling them all brave little soldiers. He's watching them like he might do it at any moment, though; Dean's bracing himself for it.

"Not sure either's gonna work anymore anyway." Gabriel rolls his eyes, making a show of agreeing, but Gabriel makes a show of _everything_. "Anyway. Time's wasting. Sorry to crash and run, but _someone_ decided to make this whole mess public, and if any of us is gonna be on the news, it oughta be the attractive one, right?"

"Dean's busy at the moment. _You_ should do it." Castiel slings back quickly, pairing it with a completely guileless expression when Gabriel turns 360 on his heel to look at Cas, both eyebrows raised comically.

". . . Did you just make a joke, Castiel?"

"That depends entirely on if it was amusing." Cas admits, the corner of his mouth quirking slightly, as he stands up, hands loose at his sides as if he's torn on movement, watching his brother prepare to leave them.

"And the _real _motivation behind the deadpan snark is revealed. Just own your bad jokes, bro. Take it from someone who. . ."

Two paces to cross the room, and Castiel wraps his arms around Gabriel's shoulders and hugs him. It's brief, faintly awkward, as Cas looms over Gabriel, and mostly one-sided, though Gabriel lifts a hand to thump Cas between the shoulder blades before they separate.

"We're hugging now." Gabriel says skeptically, looking from Cas, who looks sheepish, to Dean, who shrugs and smirks at the both of them, to Sam who nods helpfully, hazel eyes bright. "You're definitely hugging, yeah."

". . .Thanks, Chuckles, but that was mostly rhetorical and directed at Castiel here."

"We're brothers." Castiel shrugs slightly, stepping back a pace to give Gabriel room, and he sounds as if he's reciting a textbook: human social behaviors, as perceived by angels after extensive study, a list of acceptable times for hugging. "And you are leaving to engage in something dangerous, I will be as well once Sam recovers; we may not see each other for some time, we have suffered loss, and we survived something catastrophic that could have killed us."

Dean and Sam exchange a look, and Sam can't contain the chortle at being so obviously used as a study in human family relationships. Cas deliberately ignores him, clarifying further as he digs his cellphone out of his pocket, putting it into Gabriel's hands so that the Trickster couldn't back out of keeping in contact, in the way Dean had done for him years ago. "And you forgave me for nearly destroying the world. And I forgave you for killing Dean several hundred times, and the . . . incident. . . when you took me out of your television game with them."

Gabriel's grin blooms, wicked and unrepentant, and Castiel cuts his words short, eyes narrowing to glare at Gabriel.

". . . Which is _still_ not amusing."

"It's a little amusing." Gabriel holds his hand up, fingers an inch apart as he peers between the space of them at his younger brother, pocketing the phone without protest. "Just a little. Even you have to admit it. . . C'mon, Cas! It was genius!"

"He never told us what happened. . ." Dean begins, and Cas holds up an interrupting finger without turning away from his brother, cutting off both curious Winchesters while holding Gabriel's gaze, eyes narrowed.

"We're not going to tell you now, either."

Gabriel grins, and tilts to look past his brother at the Winchester boys, winking. "You heard the man. Sorry. Don't hold it against him. . . I mean,_ you_ never told him you two watched porno of me, did you?"

And on that, Gabriel grins broadly and snaps his fingers, disappearing, leaving Castiel to turn and look at the Winchesters in bewilderment.

"I. . . was he kidding about that? I don't understand the joke."

Sam can't keep a straight face, morphine making his own humor hilarious as he feeds Castiel's words back at him. "'We're not supposed to talk about it.'"

* * *

**_Author's Note: _**_So, that's the main story resolved. I promise an epilogue for you all that will wrap things up neater. Let me know what you'd like to see, and I hope everyone enjoyed and it met your expectations. Thank you, all of you, who have taken the time to leave me a note or give me a review. This was (as you can see from the wordcount) a big endeavor, and a labor of love for myself, and for my sometimes cowriter and always beta, Mrstserc (thank you, love you ma'am, and I'm so glad you joined me in this). I'm not sure that I'll be hopping back into SPN fanfiction again right away, but I'm glad to have found such lovely people in it. _


	21. Chapter 21

_The grand story. And we ripped up the ending, and the rules, and destiny, leaving nothing but freedom and choice. Which is all well and good, except... well, what if I've made the wrong choice? How am I supposed to know?_

. . .

Choice plagued Castiel from the moment Dean Winchester coaxed the concept from him, took a seed of doubt hesitantly revealed in a playground in the early November morning, and nurtured it into full-blown rebellion and treason. Choice has been the bane of his long existence, and now the source of his greatest joys. But there is something soothing and comforting about periodically relinquishing the need for that choice and living by strict, arbitrary, and even capricious rule.

But he thinks the cheering at his misfortune may be slightly uncalled for.

Throwing his brightly colored money onto the table, Castiel huffs and takes his turn at the spinner, already muttering as he does, glaring across the table at the competition. "This game is inconsistent, requires no strategy, and encourages a materialistic view of adulthood, and I'm not certain. . ."

"Castiel, that will put you on the wedding square!" Samandriel's car is well ahead of his on the board now, a pink and blue peg in the front seat of the small green plastic vehicle, but it's Claire that has Castiel's attention when her bell-like laugh rings out again as she hands Cas the second blue peg for his car without needing to deliberate over who his tiny plastic spouse will be.

It is likely ridiculous how satisfying it is at this point in the game to plug that blue plastic pip into the passenger's seat.

". . . Not certain that is the lesson I would like for either of you to walk away with."

"You just hate losing." Claire teases, her dyed hair falling into her eyes as she worries her lower lip in her teeth as if she has to literally bite back her grins. "And you're a major control freak. The second we pick a game with dice or a spinner you try and talk us all into chess."

"I_ like_ chess." Cas mutters. Chess makes sense. Chess relies on strategy and skill. He is good at strategy and skill, and horrible with things requiring _luck_.

"You lose to a_ blind guy_ every time you're home. You need a new game."

Across the room, Bobby Singer snorts in amusement and tilts his head in their direction, still paying attention to them despite the Spanish soap opera on in the living room for him to listen to. "She's got you there, feathers."

"Your memory for the board and placement of chess pieces is good for your mental visualization and acuity. . ."

"You're just waiting 'til you win a game before you give up trying to beat me." Bobby snipes, and Jodi pokes him in the side with her toes, stretched out on the couch with her feet tucked beside him as she works on the paperwork for the sheriff's office.

"Play nice, Singer."

No, Castiel was fairly certain he wouldn't be satisfied until he had beaten the patriarch of his husband's family in strategy _several_ times at least. He has something to prove there, whether he will admit it aloud or not. "I don't give up."

"Ain't that the truth." It is not the first time Gabriel has appeared unannounced inside Castiel and Dean's home, but it is the first time he has done so with an invitation. Swiping from Castiel's bowl of popcorn, he spins a chair around at the table, falling in between Castiel and Samandriel and eyeballing the board. "You're gonna lose this one, though, Castiel. You might as well bow to the inevitable."

"They're supposed to be learning perseverance from this discussion. You are subverting the message." Cas chastises, and picks up a card on his next turn, squinting at it. Sunny Days Inn is apparently going to be his new home. For an inane amount of money. Huffing, Cas lays down his card in front of him, parts from the majority of his remaining currency, and passes the turn on to Samandriel.

Samandriel, whose LIFE token indicates he has 'scored with Miss America contestant' and should collect $10,000. Samandriel looks at the token with some confusion, before collecting his money from a giggling Claire. Castiel shoots a sideways glance at his elder brother, skeptical of Gabriel's innocence as he stuffs another handful of popcorn in his mouth.

"Where are Mutt and Jeff? Tell me they're out killing someone, or doing something to break up this shameful display of modern domesticity."

"Have you killed anything interesting lately?" Samandriel asks, turning his eyes to the Trickster, and Gabriel grins. "See, _that's_ what I like about this place. The light dinner conversation."

"Anna thinks we're a bad influence on him." Arguably the last innocent angel in the world, and he spent most of his days around Bobby Singer, Jodi Mills, and Claire Novak, helping at the ministry when he wasn't helping Bobby, and when Sam, Dean and Castiel were away.

"Uh-huh." Gabriel doesn't sound like he's going to argue against that point, and Castiel sighs. His sister has integrated elsewhere; Anna did not intend to hunt, and avoided them when they did. The Winchesters saw her rarely, but Castiel took comfort in knowing that she had gotten a human life back, what she had envied the entire time and fallen for. Keeping away from them ensured her normalcy.

Samandriel, however, never quite drifted away. Dean smirkingly assumed there was another reason for it than family, but Castiel has missed his meaning so far.

Claire's next turn changes her profession, and she grins as she turns the card to face Cas, Gabriel and Samandriel, a cartoon figure of a woman dressed in a leopard print corset and knee-length boots. "Apparently I'm a Porn Star now."

Somewhere between Castiel scolding a cackling Gabriel for changing their game cards, Samandriel turning scarlet to the roots of his blonde hair and trying not to look at Claire, and Claire herself cheerfully noting that her new salary would nearly _ensure_ she won the game, Dean and Sam spilled into the house from the back porch carrying burgers and hotdogs and arguing.

". . . ashamed of us or something? You've been dating this chick for how long and I haven't even met. . ."

"Three _weeks_, Dean, it's not like we've exchanged keys or anything. I mean, we disappeared for the vampire thing for part of that anyway and . . ."

". . . _'and'_ you were online on your _computer_ every night with her, geek boy. Don't try and pretend you weren't, I swear we could hear you at like two AM through that motel wall . . ."

". . . are you _seriously_ going to open the conversation up to things heard through motel walls, Dean? Do you _really_ want to go there with me?"

"I'd prefer you didn't." Castiel interjects from the table, deliberately calling their attention back to their guests, blue eyes wide, and he stops just short of waving his hands to signal them to stow the teasing for later. Gabriel, however, raises his hand and smirks wickedly. "I could stand to hear a little more."

"Pervert." Dean jibes easily, dropping the burgers down in the middle of the kitchen counter and throwing a pickle at Gabriel's head. "You should never be left around the kids."

"You realize I _am_ actually older than you." Samandriel shuffles the LIFE tokens again, looking impossibly young as he does.

"And you're kinda late in saving me, Dean. He already made me a porn star." Claire informs them easily, completely without context, just to mess with them.

"They don't count years as an angel." Castiel informs his younger brother evenly, with the clear tones of long dissent on the matter, but he's eyeing Samandriel nonetheless. No, he's relatively certain he views Samandriel as something of a teenager too, or the young adult his vessel appears to be. Perhaps selective ageism is an acquired and inherently hypocritical trait.

"Go back to explaining what the hell you meant with the porn star thing." Dean's spluttering.

"Don't you even." Jodi interjects from the living room, pulling Bobby up with her as she rises from the couch. "She's _not_ _legal_, Gabriel, and you'd be skinned for thinking it."

"Oh, _I'm_ not the one thinking about it. . ." Gabriel mutters under his breath, eyeing Claire, and then pointedly looking at Samandriel, who is still pink around the ears. Claire grins in response to Gabriel and shrugs silently. Castiel's not certain he's comfortable with how well his vessel's daughter and his elder brother are getting along, either, now that Dean has mentioned it. It has the potential to become conspiratorial, and he's still not entirely certain what's going on.

"I'm _almost_ legal."

"You're still in high school, kid, and you're going to finish it, and _then_ we can argue about . . ."

". . . Hey, speaking of. I have a history final tomorrow. Think you could help me study, Andy? I mean, you saw it right. . .?" Claire turns to Samandriel, smiling coyly as Gabriel mouths 'Andy?' questioningly to Dean, who shrugs as he chops up onion for burgers. "We already had a Sam. She didn't like his vessel's name. He seems okay with it."

Gabriel snorts. "Yeah, well, that's shocking. An angel unquestioningly accepting a nickname from a human. Never seen _that_ before." Cas is fairly sure the kick in the ankle he receives was meant for his brother, though he is not certain who dealt it.

"Dinner." Sam interjects, dropping a salad bowl in the middle of their game board and consequently breaking up the bickering before it can get any more ribald. Suddenly everything is crowded, close quarters, too much personality in one small space, and Castiel grimaces faintly as he makes room for Dean to set down the burgers by slipping out of his seat, giving his space up to Bobby. "I'll clear the table and put the games away."

He needs to escape for a moment.

Their home isn't much, Castiel knows. There are two-bedroom suites at hotels across the United States that rival or beat it in square footage, but never at the sort of motels they stay in. There's not space for more than their most used possessions, and their lives are nomadic enough that none of them really have much. Their books and the majority of their materials still stay at Jodi's house a relatively short drive across Sioux Falls, for men used to travelling across the country on the drop of a dime.

But it's theirs, a postage-stamp sized two bedroom prefabricated park-model cabin, tucked into Singer Salvage Yard, held in Bobby's name to keep away the media and the gawkers. They have a kitchen, with real food in the cabinets, and Dean buys him chocolate syrup and flavored creamer and keeps it in the door of the refrigerator just for his coffee. In front of the small television there's a couch that he and Dean usually claim, and a reclining chair for Sam, and at nights they still sometimes insist they're teaching Castiel about humanity, but actually spend the time bickering about their favorite movies. There is a bedroom for Sam, at the opposite end of the little cabin from their own, and though Dean has sadly watched his brother as if dreading the day he will declare intent to move out and drop out of the hunting life, Sam has set up speakers within it for his laptop and is slowly acquiring a collection of curious items found on their travels. Most importantly there is a bedroom that is _theirs_, his and Dean's, their clothes hanging in the closet together and a bed with soft sheets and a mattress that every time he sinks into it, he tells himself he never wants to move again.

Castiel doesn't know where the money for the little house actually came from, if it was acquired illegally or not, but he likes to think sometimes that this was given to them, put aside for Dean and to Sam for what the world now knows they accomplished, for what they still fight for. Honestly, he personally has no idea how much such a thing would cost; like the game, everything seems arbitrarily assigned a fluctuating monetary value, particularly in a post-apocalyptic era of destabilized governments and Castiel finds it generally perplexing.

Humanity is still frequently bewildering.

This? This is the best part of it, though. Even after he takes the steps down from the covered porch to the graveled drive, he can hear laughter and bickering and teasing, the clattering of plates and cups, Sam defending his side dish, Claire complaining about salad with burgers, and Bobby complaining about Claire complaining, and Gabriel trying to goad anyone into revealing more about Sam's girlfriend, inevitably with the intent of teasing her, and they sound so breathtakingly _alive_ all of them.

The game pieces rattle as he pushes the box into the cab of Bobby's old truck, now handed down to Claire, securing it behind her bookbag on the seat to keep it from sliding when she leaves. He doesn't hear the crunch of gravel until he feels himself being yanked back by the belt loops, pulling him back flush against Dean.

"You're getting sloppy, Cas." Dean's breath is warm across the shell of Cas's ear, and Cas can hear the teasing grin coloring his voice without seeing it. He rolls his eyes, huffing quietly as he closes the truck door, leaning back into Dean pliably. "I was expecting you."

"Uh-huh. Sure you were." Dean crowds Cas forward, trapping him against the door of the battered old truck; Cas escaped the room_ because_ he was crowded and trapped, but contrary to all logic (Castiel's logic tends to short-circuit around Dean) being pinned here by Dean has the opposite effect. Dean is safety and comfort and late nights tangled in bed and trying to ensure as little space between them as possible. 'Personal space' is a concept so foreign between them that the incessant reminders of space in the past seem laughable now, a useless denial of the inevitable. They _belong_ like this. "Either that means you _weren't _expecting me but you don't want to admit that if I was a demon you'd be toast right now, or you snuck out of the party _just _to get me out here so we were alone together. Which makes you kinda a tease."

Cas tips his head back onto Dean's shoulder as Dean mouths along the hinge of his jaw, baring his throat to Dean and hooking his arms back around the hunter, a hand splayed wide along the dip of his spine to keep Dean from pulling back. "Or I assumed that you'd notice that I stepped outside for air and follow me because you . . ."

Castiel doesn't get to finish his counter-argument: Dean tips his chin, claiming Cas's mouth in a branding kiss, off-center and awkward, Cas's back still pressed to Dean's chest, his head turned to meet Dean. It's enough to once again derail Cas's train of thought and leave Dean smug when he breaks it, both of them breathless, to smirk at him, hooking his chin onto Castiel's shoulder. "Sorry. All I was hearing was 'yeah, you're right on both counts, but I'm not going to admit it' and I. . ."

Castiel hooks his leg back through Dean's ankles, locks an arm around Dean's elbow, braces his weight against the truck door before him and pivots, ducking under Dean's arm and following the motion through until he bounces Dean back against the door of the truck, just to prove he _can, _just to prove he is not and never has been _sloppy_. He then steps into Dean and kisses him abruptly because he _wants to _and because it's not teasing if you have every intention of following through, and because Dean keeps _talking_. Dean grins, leaning back against the truck like he got there by choice, his voice teasing as Cas brackets him against the door. "Something to prove there, Cas?"

Cas's pupils are blown wide and his voice has dropped into the low, rough register that Dean translates into _Batman voice_ and then _sex voice_ and he _knows_ Cas does that on purpose. "I am _not_ a 'tease.' And I would_ not _be 'toast.'"

"Break it up out there, you idjits, you've got people over. Don't make me let them hose you off. Dinner's getting cold and my beer's getting warm." Bobby's voice reaches them from inside the house, and Cas lets his breath out in a low sigh of frustration, resting his head against Dean's shoulder and closing his eyes. Dean doesn't have time to celebrate the affect he has on his angel. Cas braces his hands against the door on either side of him, a push-up motion that has him molding himself against Dean in a sinuous line before he leverages himself back, in a move that is _unquestionably_ teasing. He'd know, because he used it on Cas first, and Cas is nothing if not a quick study. So when Cas holds a hand out to him, one corner of his lips quirked up faintly and blue eyes knowing, Dean shoots him a glare as he takes his hand.

"You're paying for that later."

Cas smiles, crinkling the corners of his eyes and brightening his features, and tugs on Dean's hand to pull them back towards their family, ready to face the chaos and close quarters again. "I truly hope so."

And so they still have their issues. Dean is still plagued by nightmares of Hell and a soul-deep ache, and Castiel still struggles with what he has done and what he became, and Sam is haunted by the lives Lucifer casually snuffed out. Cas is still painfully pessimistic, Sam still struggles with the hunting life, and Dean is still too quick to throw himself on the grenade for all of them. It's a _part _of them; they help each other through it. Castiel has always admired that purely human ability to adapt, to adjust, to thrive and love and laugh even in the strangest of conditions. This is a post-apocalyptic world, a world _after_ _the apocalypse_, and his Father's work is still just as beautiful.

They are all battered, broken creatures in some way: the boy with the demon blood, the messiah who doubts God, the seraph who committed heresy, the archangel who rebelled, the blind hunter, the childless mother, the girl who saw too much. . . but together they work. Because they are _family_.

It has been a year this week since Castiel fell to earth.

It is a Thursday.

And they are finally _home._

_. . . _

_So, what's it all add up to? It's hard to say. But me, I'd say this was a test, and I think they did all right. Up against good, evil, angels, devils, destiny, and God himself, they made their own choice. They chose family. And, well... isn't that kinda the whole point?_


End file.
